


Unwritten

by SiriuslyPeeved



Series: Many Worlds: The Unwrittenverse [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Baby Harry Potter, Dark Magic, F/M, Gen, Lily Lives, Order of the Phoenix - Freeform, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Hogwarts, Pre-Philosopher's Stone, Suspense, Young Severus Snape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2017-12-29 23:28:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 24
Words: 56,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1011352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SiriuslyPeeved/pseuds/SiriuslyPeeved
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU: Halloween, 1981.  Marked for death, Lily and Harry escape with the aid of Dark magic. Sirius vows to find Harry and track down Severus Snape, his mother's alleged murderer. The prophecy has divided; destiny writes on a blank page. M rating for violence/language.</p><p>Originally posted on HPFF in 2008, revising in preparation to continue the sequel (<i>Rowan and Phoenix</i>).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fidelius: Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lily Potter is betrayed and must save her child.

**Halloween, 1981**

Godric's Hollow was quiet at last. Muggle children wandered home from fancy-dress parties with laden pails of candy banging against their knees. As the twilight deepened, little revelers gave way to groups of teenagers in lopsided rubber fright masks. They dropped their empty beer cans into the drainage pond at the edge of the meadow and returned home to sleep in comfort, fearing nothing worse than their parents shouting at them in the morning.

Lily Potter turned in bed and settled once more on her side. From the downstairs hall came a shuffling sound: footsteps on a hardwood floor. That must be James coming home, she thought. It couldn't be anyone else, other than their friend Peter; the Fidelius charm kept them safe. Lily curled her fingers around her wand and drifted back to sleep.

Lily jerked awake again. A round-shouldered figure stood by her bedside, black-robed, its face in shadow. "Potter is dead," Severus Snape said curtly. "Your wards are broken. Come with me."

Adrenaline overcame the torpor of her dreaming limbs and body. Lily stumbled out of bed, her thin cotton nightdress hitching up around her waist. Severus stepped toward her. She levered her wand at the center of his chest. "One more move and I'll kill you."

Severus raised his hands in surrender. "Lily, calm down. I'm here to help you."

"You're a Death Eater.  You can't deny that. Tell me why you're here!" Severus didn't answer. Lily sent a white-hot burning hex into his shoulder. He fell to his knees with his mouth silently working: the gasp of a goldfish among the shattered remains of its bowl. "I told you, Snape! Talk!"

"We have to get away from here. There's no time to argue; the Dark Lord is coming."

"How do you know that?"

"You're wasting valuable time. Let me up and I'll tell you everything." Lily drew back her wand but kept him at close range. Severus rose unevenly from the floor, holding his jinxed shoulder with the opposite hand. "Your wards are broken. Pettigrew betrayed you. He's been planning this for months. The child..."

"Harry?"

"The boy belongs to my Master. He will kill the child, or he will kill you both. There's nothing you can do for him now."

Lily backed into the small nursery next door, her wand never wavering from Snape's heart. A night-light cast distorted shadows, turning the crib slats to sharpened pikes and Lily's hurrying shadow to a looming monster. She grabbed Harry from his blankets and pressed him to her shoulder. He was so small, so fragile in her arms. Snape took a step toward mother and child. The baby screamed.

"Get away from my son!" Lily shouted. " _Avada -_ "

As quickly as her lips moved to finish the incantation, Snape cast a silencing jinx. Lily gagged and her wand wavered away from its target.

"Spare me, you haven't the backbone for an Unforgivable Curse." He sneered. "Precious girl all safe and snug, playing house with that moronic Potter because you're too special to fight for yourself."

Fury at his words pushed up from under Lily's diaphragm, making it hard to breathe. _He hasn't changed at all. Same arrogant prick as ever._ Lily squeezed Harry more tightly against her side, but the little boy didn't protest -- he only stared at the strange man in the black robes.

"You have no idea what I sacrificed for you. I saved you. I convinced the Dark Lord you were worthless, that you would cause no more trouble. Don't thank me by throwing away your life."

Lily started backing toward the nursery window. If the safeguards on the house were truly destroyed she could Apparate away with Harry, but where would she go?

"Leave him, Lily, and save yourself. It's the only way."

"I won't go anywhere without Harry. You'll have to kill me."

"You're hysterical. You don't know what you're saying."

Lily's eyes locked on his. "Go ahead. I won't leave him."

Snape raised his wand. Lily's hand tightened on Harry's warm shoulder as she braced herself for the curse. Harry would never know a moment without his mother. She let go of everything else.

Her assailant reeled backward and covered his eyes with one arm. "Are you crying?" Lily had an opening. She would use his weakness to save her son. "You can't do it, can you? No matter, your Master is on his way. He'll finish the job."

"Lily, please. Put down the boy and come with me." In the desperate flash of Snape's eyes, Lily saw the boy who had loved her and the fear she would reject him once more. It was a calculated risk, safer than sure death at the hands of Voldemort.

"I'll come, but not without Harry." Witch and wizard stood facing each other in the half-lighted nursery. The baby cried and hid his face from the strange man in the black robes.

"All right. Wait." Snape seemed short of breath. "Let me think how we're going to get out of here."

"What happened to James?" The whole world was ending, her whole life wrenched free by the roots and stomped to death, and there Lily was asking Severus to tell her what happened to her husband.

Contempt for James brought Severus back to himself. He straightened and folded his arms against his chest, smirking. "Your little friend Pettigrew... Lured him out tonight with some nonsensical coded message. One of their 'things,' you know." 

Lily forgot to breathe. The four of them were always making up codes, though Lily had always thought it was mostly a way to tell dirty jokes in public without getting slapped.

"The rat boy fed your Potter quite a story... Told him Lupin and Black were captured and being held in the church at Ottery St. Catchpole. Begged him to bring along the Invisibility Cloak."

_Save us, James,_ said frightened little Peter, and James went. Of course he did. _Oh God, maybe Severus is telling the truth._ Lily pitched her voice down, trying to sound skeptical. "Why should I believe you?"

Severus reached inside his black robes and muttered a spell. He tossed something small onto the nursery rug. It could have been a doll, but the wet, heavy thump when the mass hit the floor said otherwise. Rotating his wand a half-twist, he spoke a spell Lily had never heard before.

On the floor, Peter Pettigrew's watery eyes were fixed wide open; his rounded boyish face was cold and still. Lily's throat constricted. She covered Harry's eyes, even if he was too small to understand. "Why would Peter want to kill James? James loves him. We all do."

"Pettigrew took the Dark Mark months ago."

Lily's answering sob was almost a laugh. She pulled Harry higher on her hip. "I suppose that bringing poor Peter here and dumping him on my nursery floor makes you think I'll go with you, no questions asked. Frankly, it's a very poor argument. Thank you for the warning, but..."

Snape pointed his wand at the robed, bleeding mass. " _Transubstantis morbialis._ " A sickly orange light glowed from the flesh. The mass expanded, boiled, stretched like taffy, and settled once more into human form.

Dark auburn hair spilled across the braided rug. Lily Potter lay dead on the floor, empty eyes staring at nothing. The living Lily retched but couldn't stop watching. Snape flicked his wand again, this time with a slight sideways motion. A copy of Lily's nightdress replaced Peter's heavy robes.

"What in God's name did you do to him? I've never heard of that spell."

"Stop babbling and hold on tight to the child. We're going."

"I need to pack some of Harry's things!" Lily reached toward the baby's chest of drawers. Severus jerked her hand back.

"We can get those somewhere else. Please." Lily finally saw the anxious face of her childhood friend: someone she had once trusted, even loved. She had no choice but to trust him now. Holding Harry tight against her shoulder and with Severus's arm tense around her waist, Lily squeezed her eyes shut as they Disapparated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back :) this story is complete, but I'm posting on AO3 in preparation for finishing the sequel, Rowan and Phoenix. I will be posting revisions as I go along. Any spells you don't recognize from the books are original -- I had a great deal of help composing them and I am thankful for friends and reviewers of the original version of Unwritten, posted in 2008-2009 on HPFF.
> 
> Hope you enjoy, any comments / constructive criticism are welcome. 
> 
> Cheers!


	2. Fidelius - Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Order investigates two murders and a disappearance.

The Dark Mark flared in the gray predawn sky, casting swirls of green light over the rooftops of Ottery St. Catchpole. Freshly toppled gravestones marred the churchyard and burn marks smoked in the upturned earth.

Alastor Moody lifted a handful of torn grass to his nose, inhaling deeply. He traced the burn marks with his wand, growling a series of rapid spells.

His deputy, Gideon Prewett, waved his own wand in a figure-eight. Two sets of footprints glowed in the predawn gloom. The silver trail skittered back indecisively and then charged forward in an attack. The golden trail spun, seemed to stumble, and then the path ended.

James Potter lay sprawled facedown on the path where he had fallen. His wire-rimmed glasses were crushed, a broken temple hanging loose from one side. Gideon crouched beside the body for a few minutes. Potter wasn't old enough to die fighting; he wasn't old enough to leave a wife and small son behind.

So many murders this year alone: so many lives ruined. The Aurors fought back but lost ground every day. "Who did this?"

"Can't rule anyone out," Moody grumbled. His magical eye rolled up to glare at the snake-tongued specter in the sky. "Got 'im from behind, whoever it was. Completely brainless, goin' around breakin' his own protective charms. Who in the hell did Potter think he was?"

Potter and his best friend Sirius Black were rightly labeled spoiled and reckless brats, but in life, Potter had shone with an infectious energy. In his presence even the most battleworn Order members found themselves believing they could win.

 _"This is war, not the bleeding Quidditch cup!"_ Moody had railed at the last Order meeting. "Potter and Black! You two prats had better rein in your conquering-hero act before you get yourselves killed." Gideon himself had been called reckless before, but he agreed. He hadn't spent that much time with Potter, but he liked the kid. He should have had a chance.

"Prewett! Help me roll him over. Stupid bastard," Moody panted. The Aurors heaved together and the body slumped onto its back. "Who's gone to his house?"

Gideon carefully closed James's staring eyes. He tucked the broken glasses in the dead man's pocket. "Meadowes is taking Longbottom and Black."

"Humph. Why she'd take Black along is beyond me. Gonna do something stupid. Stupid and noble, most like." Moody scuffed his foot along the ground, tracing the contours of footprints in the dust. His toes disappeared. Startled, Moody aimed his wand at the ground. His prosthetic eye spun so quickly, Prewett had to look away before he got sick. With a careful hand, Moody lifted the Invisibility Cloak from the ground and shook the dirt from its shimmering folds. Moody stuffed the cloak into Prewett's outstretched hands.

"Somebody's going to have to tell Dumbledore about this."

"I'll go up to my sister's and Floo in from there." Gideon straightened up slowly, feeling tired and sore. "Too many damned funerals this year. Who's going to be left to fight?" Gideon knew he wouldn't get an answer. Moody already had his wand trained on the mocking skull cloud overhead, absorbing the foul tang of Dark magic from the air. Prewett folded the Invisibility Cloak and tucked it in his pocket. The uncanny fabric was so smooth under his fingertips, it almost wasn't there.

* * *

 

"Shut it or I'm taking you back to Dumbledore!" Hagrid tried to muffle his sobs in the thick sleeve of his overcoat. Whatever else Sirius Black had done for the Order of the Phoenix, taking his emotional friend on a stealth mission was not one of his better decisions. Winter-browned hedge scratched at Sirius's face as he struggled to keep Hagrid quiet.

 _"Muffliato."_ Sirius cast a grateful look over his shoulder. Dorcas Meadowes knelt behind him with her cloak pooling in the leaves and dried grass. The moonlight shone on her silver-brown hair where it curled out from beneath her hood.

Steady and impassive, Frank Longbottom held his wand at the ready. "All right, let's move in." Sirius shepherded Hagrid along, and Dorcas brought up the rear.

A spectral caterwauling from the cottage made them all drop and cover their ears. A tree full of sleeping rooks startled into flight. Sirius sprang into a full run and his companions pounded along behind him. Voldemort's scream burned in his ears even as Sirius ran up the steps into the cottage.

Beyond the dark stairwell, heavy furniture crashed into the walls. A storm of Reductor curses broke every pane of glass. "The child! Where is the cursed child?" With a final shriek and a crack like lightning, the wraith Disapparated.

"Harry! Where are ya, boy?" Hagrid pounded upstairs, nearly putting his foot through the top step. Sirius followed and skidded into his back at the nursery door. "Stay back," Hagrid sobbed. "You don' wanna see this."

Voldemort's rage was written in destruction. Shards of broken mirror glass gleamed up from the carpet. Baby clothes lay small and pathetic on the floor. Sirius had to shoulder his way past a fallen dresser and chest to reach Lily's still body.

Lily lay in the middle of the floor with her nightdress twisted around her waist. Her green eyes were fixed open, staring up at Harry's mobile. Tiny folded-paper animals dangled from the side rail of the crushed cot, fluttering with the slightest movement of air.

Dorcas Meadowes' lined face was full of sympathy as she moved past Sirius, laying her hand briefly on the young man's shoulder.

Frank Longbottom knelt down beside Sirius. "I'd like to try something. It's a new spell Alice has been working on... Might help us figure out who did this. May I?" Sirius nodded, his eyes burning hot and tearless. Frank laid the tip of his wand against Lily's chest. _"Virgam revelio!"_ he muttered. Startled, Frank wavered and had to catch himself. Regaining his balance, he continued casting spells with fierce concentration.

Dorcas's wand glowed bright blue as she prodded in the corners of the broken cot. Frustrated, she repeated the scanning spell. "I've no trace of the little boy. I can't tell if anything's been taken." On the floor beside her, Sirius shooed Hagrid away from stepping on Lily's tumbled hair. Dorcas lowered her wand and crouched down beside him, careful of the mirror glass. "Sirius, dear, I'm so sorry."

Hagrid growled with vindictive triumph. "Didn't find what he was lookin' for! You-Know-Who, I mean. He killed her 'cause he couldn't get to baby Harry."

"I can tell you one thing, Hagrid." Frank Longbottom stowed his wand in his robes and looked around at the others. "That new charm Alice gave me identifies the wand that cast the last spell on the victim. Voldemort didn't kill Lily. It was Severus Snape."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 10/2016: hey self, let's edit a story we finished five years ago! Sounds like fun! Heh.
> 
> Enjoy! Chocolate Frogs for all my readers.


	3. Transfiguration

An old clock ticked loudly in the small, shabby cottage. Ocean waves surged and sighed on the rocky beach. Autumn fog hung just beyond the breakers, chilly and dense in the dawn light. With a sound like gunfire, two tall figures erupted into being.

Harry stared all around him in wonder; Lily knew her little son had never Apparated before. She thought they were in a holiday cottage at the seaside, deserted at this time of year; the air was damp and still, the windowsills dotted with dead flies.

Severus Snape let go of Lily's arm and snooped into all the corners of the dingy room, poking his wand into cupboards and corners. Apparently satisfied, he turned to Lily. "Wait here. I'll go outdoors and make sure we're undisturbed." Gathering his heavy cloak about his shoulders, he stalked out into the steadily brightening morning.

Lily sank down onto a saggy twin bed and held Harry in her lap, pressing her face into his hair. 

Harry looked around with a curious expression, pulling at Lily's nightdress with sticky hands. "Mama?" 

"Right here, darling." Lily checked Harry over with a mother's absent habit. Harry seemed fine. How could he be? His father was dead, his home probably destroyed. Everything he had ever known was gone overnight. As far as Harry was concerned, his father could appear at any moment and swoop him up to play while Mummy got breakfast ready. Lily walled off all thoughts of what had happened to James. There was no time to break down; she had to keep Harry safe.

Snape entered the cottage, rubbing his cold white hands against his forearms. He sank gracelessly into a dirty armchair and gazed out the window at the sea.

The baby seemed content, but Lily was freezing in her sleeveless cotton nightdress. She pulled a scratchy blanket around her goose-pimpled arms. As Lily sat back down, she felt a warm dampness spreading on her hip. Harry's diaper had leaked. She hated to ask Snape for help, but she had no other options.

"Snape?" The hook-nosed face turned slightly toward her. "I really need a nappy and some clean clothes. Harry's leaked all over me."

With distaste, Severus pointed his wand at a stack of grubby kitchen towels and Transfigured them into cloth diapers. Lily changed the squirmy boy and applied a Drying Charm to her clothes and Harry's sleeper. They still smelled like baby wee, but at least they were dry. Lily lay down slowly and arranged Harry in her arms, keeping his sweet, soft head close to her face. If she closed her eyes and breathed in, it was like nothing had happened. Her last waking thought was of James.

The sun was high when Lily startled awake. She looked toward the tiny stove and saw Severus fiddling with a steaming kettle. She left Harry sleeping, taking one of the blankets to wrap around herself. The table was laid with garish orange cups and pink melamine plates.

"The Muggles left tea and sugar in the cupboard. There's nothing else to eat."

"We'll figure something out." Lily settled at the table and looked warily at her companion. "Why did you bring us here?"

Snape poured two mugs of tea and pushed one across to Lily. He waited as she dropped in a single lump of sugar, and then cleared his throat to speak. "Pettigrew was supposed to draw Potter off so the Dark Lord could come for the child without opposition."

"Seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through for one family."

"It was a flawed plan. The Dark Lord could have easily taken you both himself. I don't know why Pettigrew was involved." Snape stirred his tea and tapped the spoon against the rim of the plastic mug. "Either way, you're safe now."

"With you? Wonderful. You're just waiting for the perfect time to turn us over to Him. There you'll be, slinking out of the corner with James's only child in your hands. Why weren't you in on this plan to begin with? Why did Peter get all the glory?"

Snape shoved his chair back from the rickety table, spilling his cup. The dark, fragrant liquid sloshed toward Lily's place. She stemmed the tide with a stained towel. Snape grabbed his black robes from a hook beside the door and stomped outside. Lily could just make out the slim steel crescent of a Death Eater's mask gleaming from his pocket.

Lily stilled her shiver of fear with a vision of James. She would keep Harry safe for now, watch and wait. If she had been thinking clearly, she would have killed him and fled with her baby. If Severus were telling the truth about Peter, it was safer here than out on their own.

Lily started to tidy the table, driving away her second thoughts. She couldn't stop to think, to remember, or she'd be swept under. James loved to tease Lily about her housekeeping. The only son of wealthy parents, he'd been spoiled by house-elves all his life.

Careless, arrogant James: full of bluster and completely useless around the house. It was like having two little boys to take care of. James, her only love, the one she turned to in the night, the most loving husband, the best father: lying dead somewhere, waiting to be found.

Lily felt the scream building up again, the pure reaction she couldn't allow herself to feel. The cracked cups washed themselves with a blast of boiling water from Lily's wand. Clean dishes flew crazily into the cupboard. Still steaming, the teakettle rocketed back to the stovetop. The metal canister tipped over on the sideboard. Tea bags scattered on the floor.

With trembling fingers, Lily stuffed the tea bags back into the canister. She sat down in one of the cracked vinyl chairs and took a deep breath, and then another. Harry stirred on the bed, tossing his covers onto the floor.

_I can't fall down now, I can't even cry. If I started, I'd never stop. I have to take care of Harry. Who knows what Severus would do with my baby? Is he truly helping us, or just waiting for something?_

Once more Lily shut off her worries by force. Harry would need something for breakfast. Tucked far back in a dirty drawer, Lily found a packet of crisps that must have been left by summer tenants. She could make a packet of crisps and a box of sugar cubes last several days. She'd had to do the same when their food supplies at home ran low and when Peter was late with the groceries. After a few days, the food would be tasteless and not very filling. Transfiguration wasn't always complete, nor could it last forever, at least not when Lily cast the spells.

Where had Peter really been when he'd stumbled in late at night with a paper sack of flour and a bottle of milk? Lily had teased him about his tardiness and Peter had blushed. Lily had a sudden vision of stout little Peter in a black robe, kneeling at Voldemort's feet. Was that when Peter had laid out the plans for James's murder, for Harry's sacrifice? She felt sick.

Harry sat up in bed and rubbed at his face. When he saw his mother, he smiled. Harry's cheeks were flushed with sleep and his black hair was even messier than usual. Lily kissed him and settled him in her lap for breakfast. "How about some toast, lovey?"

The door opened slowly once more. Lily turned her head; she couldn't stand to look at Severus. A paper sack of groceries thumped to the table beside her. "Food," he said unnecessarily. He tossed another untidy bundle to Lily and Harry's bed. "Clothes."

Lily stopped with her wand in midair. She was halfway through Transfiguring a stale crisp for Harry's breakfast. The crisp shimmered violet and pink with uncertainty and resolved at last into warm toast.

"Where did you get those clothes?"

"Clotheslines. Best use that Drying Charm of yours, they're damp."

Lily stared at her captor as he removed his black robe and hung it again beside the door. She slid the plate across the table. "Would you like some toast?"

* * *

The mantle of night lifted almost imperceptibly from the sharp-edged Scottish mountains. A few lonely stars clung to the high arch of sky, straining to see their faces in the mirror-smooth lake below. The great castle slept, but one window glowed high in a round tower.

Albus Dumbledore sat stooped behind his desk, his back to the open window. As Headmaster of Hogwarts School, he had rarely felt so powerless. Uncombed, his long white beard trailed onto the scattered mess of books and papers. A fine silver cloth slid back and forth through his fingers. The Invisibility Cloak flowed like mercury, catching hints of white from the Headmaster's beard and gold from his spectacles. Violet shone from the velvet armchair by the window, cream stripes and leathery brown from the bookshelves, and vivid red flames from the tail of a sleeping phoenix.

Alastor Moody scowled at the old Headmaster. Gaslight blue, his enchanted eye whirled like a marble spun between a child's fingers. It passed over the slumbering portraits, the shining instruments bobbing on a marble shelf, and the Sword of Gryffindor hanging high on the curved stone wall.

"Albus, you've got to stop blaming yourself. They're not kids forever. They grow up; they have their own idea how to do things. You give 'em just enough rope, and hope they use it for climbing up instead of hanging themselves."

Dumbledore knew he deserved worse. He had been awakened in the dead of night by a silver badger leaping to the foot of his bed, growling in Moody's voice.

_"Potter's dead. Isn't he supposed to be Fideliused? Send help to Lily if you know where the bloody hell she is."_ The Patronus snapped its ghostly jaws at Dumbledore's outstretched hand before dissolving in a starlight haze.

"Peter Pettigrew must have been captured, tortured. That's the only plausible explanation."

"There's always more than one explanation." Moody chuckled blackly and shuffled his prosthetic leg to the side. He often removed the leg when he was sitting down. Dumbledore knew the Auror had been offered a more advanced magical leg from St. Mungo's, but thinking it a vanity, Moody had never taken the time to have the new leg fitted.

Ignoring Mad-Eye, Dumbledore went on. "Peter wasn't strong enough for the the Fidelius charm... I thought Sirius was to be Secret-Keeper. He was always more reliable."

"Merlin's pants, Albus. Sirius Black, reliable? You ever listen to him bragging about his stupid stunts?" Mad-Eye spat into the fire. "The way Black and Potter got to flappin' their jaws! Thought the Order of the Phoenix should be renamed the 'Order of the Flying Motorbike.'"

Dumbledore quelled the Auror with a glance. Unruffled, Mad-Eye sat back in his chair, taking a sip from the cup of cold tea on the side table.

Dumbledore had never known what Pettigrew offered his friends other than blind admiration. That could have been enough for the other boys when they were in school.

"Alastor, I must confess I once despaired of them both. Girls and Quidditch were their first priorities." 

"And yet you made Potter Head Boy?"

"Ah, poor Peter. He was the last casualty I would have expected... I suppose if he hadn't followed his friends, he would have gone home and stayed out of the war entirely." 

Dumbledore went quiet, staring into the fire. Pettigrew was the afterthought to Potter's gang, lacking the cool judgment of Lupin (a steady lad despite his own affliction), Sirius Black's quick-witted talent, and Potter's own quixotic bravery.

The Sorting Hat sat dormant on a high shelf above the sword of Gryffindor. Wherever else Peter Pettigrew fell short, he was a Gryffindor in his soul. Dumbledore hoped that was enough to keep the poor boy alive.

Fawkes rose and settled on Dumbledore's lap: he stroked the bird's soft feathers as he thought. Moody nodded off in a purple wing chair, his magical eye slowly winding down.

At a quarter to seven in the morning, the fireplace roared to life with bottle-green flames. Dumbledore hastily folded the Invisibility Cloak and tucked it away in his desk drawer. A motley group of wizards crowded out of the marble fireplace, dusting soot from their robes. Hagrid knocked his head on the mantelpiece.

"Lily's dead," Sirius said heavily. "Harry's gone."

Dumbledore stood tall once more, his body taut with surprise. "Gone?"

Dorcas Meadowes stepped forward and straightened her spectacles. In the waning green glow of the Floo, bruise-like circles puddled beneath her eyes. The Auror Inspector was quite a young witch in Albus's eyes – only having reached her mid-fifties – but the war had taken a toll on the entire Order. "When we arrived, we heard Voldemort ransacking the upstairs, searching for the baby. Lily was there... she'd been dead for a few hours already."

With fury, Mad-Eye Moody clattered to his feet. "Meadowes!" he barked, jamming his prosthetic under the stump of his knee before he fell over. "That makes no sense whatsoever. Lily's dead, who on earth would bother to kill her and not the baby?"

Dorcas's face flushed with anger at Moody's attack, but before she could answer, Sirius erupted. "It was Severus Snape!"

"Sirius," Hagrid said reasonably, "Sit down, son."

"I won't!" Sirius shouted. "That greasy git, that Slytherin! Snape killed Lily and he has the baby. We have to find him! He's going to take Harry to You-Know-Who!"

Dumbledore remembered an evening not long ago in a shadowy room at the Hog's Head, and later, a pale and trembling young man swearing that he would do anything to safeguard Lily Potter, even taking the Dark Mark to spy for the Order. "That's not possible."

"I used that new spell we've been developing, Virgam revelio. I know it's accurate. Alice and I have tested it a dozen times." Frank Longbottom stood beside Sirius. "Rowan and phoenix tail feather, twelve and a half inches. I know that wand, Albus. So does Black. Severus Snape cast the Killing Curse on Lily Potter."

"I need time to consider this," said Dumbledore finally. "Get a good breakfast and some rest. Come back at noon."

"What? We're not going to do anything?" Sirius was apoplectic. "We've got to go after my godson!"

"Dorcas, if you would, please pay a call on Lily's blood relatives. _Accio next-of-kin,_ " said Dumbledore. A small index card bearing Lily's name flew into his hand. All the Order members looked away. They all had similar cards somewhere in the secret files.

"Lily hated her family!" Sirius burst out. Hagrid laid a huge hand on his shoulder but Sirius slapped it away. "She wouldn't have wanted you to tell them a damn thing!"

Dumbledore pressed the card into Dorcas's palm. "Lily's only sister, Mrs. Petunia Dursley, lives in Surrey at this address. They're Muggles: tread carefully." Dorcas's natural tact and ease with the Muggle world would be invaluable. Dashing tears from her eyes, the silver-haired witch nodded and went back to the Floo.

Sirius looked desperately at the Headmaster. "Sir, you've got to listen to me!"

Dumbledore felt the young man's pain as keenly as his own. "If Severus intended to give the child to Voldemort, it has already happened," Dumbledore said gently. "Harry is lost. You know this."

Shoving his way past Frank and Hagrid, Sirius stumbled down the curving staircase. He aimed a swift kick at the gargoyle standing sentry, and its vocal complaints echoed all the way down the corridor.

"Wait up," Hagrid puffed. "Sorry, sorry," he said, patting the gargoyle hard on the head. "Me young friend's a bit upset." Sirius spluttered. "C'mon, let's go to my cabin, I'll put the kettle on. Yer gonna wake the whole castle."

"They'll all know before long. I'm going after Harry."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still editing! A round of butterbeer (firewhisky if you're of age) for anyone who stumbles across this story :)


	4. Amortentia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorcas calls on Petunia Dursley. Lily makes the most of what she can find.

Walking slowly along the pavement, Dorcas surveyed Privet Drive in the mid-morning gloom. She stopped to brush a dried leaf off the shoulder of her olive green jacket. It was restrictive and hot, made of some odd fabric: she thought it was called polyester. As a half-blood, Dorcas knew quite well how to pass for a Muggle, but she hated the clothes.

Gabled brick houses stood on either side of the street, locked in a rigid geometry of street and pavement. Carefully trimmed lawns and hedges were browning in the autumn chill. A few sober, self-conscious jack-o-lanterns lurked on front steps, their eyeholes standing vacant and unlit. Each lawn was empty, each house seemingly desolate, except number four.

Eggshells and toilet paper festooned the small lawn and splattered across the azaleas. A young blonde housewife scrubbed furiously at globs of dried egg yolk on her front walk. Her disheveled hair drooped out from under a flowered kerchief, and her green eyes betrayed a sliver of madness. A fat fair-haired boy toddled behind her, strapped into an overburdened baby walker. He banged his bottle on the rim of the walker, setting a rack of bright plastic beads spinning.

"Want!" the boy pouted.

Petunia's laugh was high and strained. "Not just now, Dudders. Mummy's got to get this nasty mess cleaned up. What if the postman comes early?" She rinsed the sidewalk with the squeeze of a sponge, drew a hand across her sweaty forehead, and noticed Dorcas standing at the end of the walk.

"I suppose you're from the Neighborhood Watch?" Mrs. Dursley didn't wait for an answer. "I called the police this morning, and they said to call the Neighborhood Watch... Eggs and toilet paper weren't their concern. Not their concern!" she declared, picking damp toilet paper out of the hedge and stuffing it in a black plastic rubbish bag.

Once Mrs. Dursley started talking she was like a balloon with the knot cut off, her words rushing out with no end in sight. Dorcas had a hard time focusing on what the woman might actually be saying. She felt as if she should have taken a dose of Concentration Powder with her hastily downed breakfast.

"It's a sad day when a law-abiding family can have their property vandalized... defiled! by those little hooligans. Why, if I'd seen them out the window last night, I would have... All my Vernon did was run over a couple of bicycles that were left behind his car, for the third night running at least! They shouldn't leave their bikes on our property, it's hardly Vernon's responsibility to move them."

Dorcas simply stood and listened, her forehead creased with pity.

"You're not from the Neighborhood Watch, are you?"

"No, Mrs. Dursley. I'm afraid I have some bad news. May I come in?"

Petunia looked wildly at the mess remaining in her front yard. "I suppose. It can't be a long visit. I must get this cleared up before anyone else sees it."

After a wary survey of the quiet street, Petunia gathered the protesting baby from his walker and carried him indoors. Dorcas followed. The kitchen was as scrubbed and sterile as the yard must have been in its normal state. If there had been a fingerprint anywhere, it would have shown against the tireless, gleaming background of glass and white porcelain.

Petunia switched on the gas range and put out two cups and a teapot. She fiddled with the biscuits, arranging them on a china plate. Petunia put baby Dudley down in his playpen and slipped him a double handful of biscuits. As she walked away, Dudley worked up a wail. She immediately turned the dial on a large, imposing television set. His protests died in mid-air.

"Now then, you were saying?" "Mrs. Dursley, my name is Dorcas Meadowes. I worked with your sister, Mrs. Lily Potter." Petunia's expression bordered on hateful. Dorcas steadied herself. "I'm so sorry to have to bring you this news. Your sister was murdered last night."

"Murdered?"

"Come and sit down, Mrs. Dursley." She led Petunia to the kitchen table. "Your sister was found at home early this morning. Your brother-in-law, James, was also killed. My colleagues discovered his body in Devon a few hours ago."

Petunia glanced quickly at the playpen. Fear showed in the sheen of her high forehead and the lift of her brow. Her son stood mesmerized by a cartoon on the television.  "She had a little baby. She never brought him around here, of course, but she wrote letters. He was just a few weeks younger than Dudley."

"Harry's missing. Possibly kidnapped." Petunia closed her eyes. "We have our best people searching for any sign of him. Harry is a charming little boy. We're going to find him." Dorcas pressed back her emotions. "I have a few questions to ask you, if you would. I know it's hard. Did you ever meet a man called Severus Snape?"

Petunia's thin face grew even harder with anger. "Of course. He lived near us when we were children."

"There's a possibility," Dorcas hazarded, pulling her chair closer to the table, "that Snape had something to do with this crime." Petunia turned her face away before Dorcas could see the full impact of her words. "He took my sister away from me when she was ten years old. If he's only finished the job now, it's fitting." Her voice was level but brittle, about to fly apart any second. "Get out of here, you freak."

"Mrs. Dursley..."

"Get out!"

Dorcas closed the front door softly behind her. Baby Dudley's screams radiated through the closed door and windows. With quick, sidelong flicks of her wand, Dorcas tidied the lawn and walk. The egg yolk splatters lifted as one and melted into the air. The toilet paper wound itself into a neat, tight ball and popped gently like a soap bubble. Slowly, Dorcas made her way to the Floo connection at Arabella Figg's. She had a lot to tell Dumbledore and a lot to learn about Severus Snape.

* * *

Lily spent Harry's morning nap fixing herself a pair of slippers. From the clothes Severus had stolen, she had taken a pair of old bell-bottomed jeans and a man's plaid flannel shirt but her feet were freezing. She'd left home without any shoes on.

Tearing strips from the ragged gray blanket, Lily tied them around her feet. Snape sat in the mildewed armchair by the window, smirking at her efforts from time to time.

Lily sat up at last, shaking her red hair back behind her shoulders. " _Scarpatio_!" Lily tapped her wand against the instep of her left foot. The bundle of rags twinkled gently with a warming sensation, becoming a plain brown loafer with scuffed sides. Its twin lay in the ruins of her home in Godric's Hollow.

Severus's curiosity was roused. He spoke to her for the first time in hours. "Why not make a new pair of shoes?"

With a tap, Lily Transfigured the other shoe. She turned her foot from side to side, satisfied with the match. "I'd have to break them in all over again. What if we have to run? This isn't a very good time to get a blister." Severus made a noise like a stifled sneeze and went back to his study of the waves on the rocky shoreline. "Where are we?" Lily asked.

"Ireland, a little way from Donegal. I came here with my cousins one summer before I went away to school."

Lily adjusted the loafer's fit around her ankle, grateful for an excuse to look away. She remembered that summer -- they were ten years old. Neighborhood rumor had it that Tobias Snape beat his wife nearly to death, putting her in hospital for months. Severus never spoke of it, not even to his best friend Lily. Before Hogwarts, she thought she had been his only friend. Even as children, so much went unspoken between them.

"Did you get along with your cousins?"

Severus's voice was rough when he answered. "They were older than me. They liked to catch crabs down by the rocks and cook them right there with their wands."

"Ugh! That's cruel."

Severus grinned at Lily's discomfort. "Is it any worse than boiling them alive like Muggles do? They were tasty." Lily had to smile back, remembering so many warm summer days spent hiding from Petunia, sharing a packet of crisps and a bottle of lemon squash in the forest clearing. Severus told her crazy stories about wizards and monsters, keeping her on the verge between awe and disbelief.

"I'll have to try those crabs sometime. James loves seafood... I mean, he loved it." Lily's heart swelled and shrank within her, beating sideways against the force of her grief.

"Lily, I'm sorry."

Severus reached one hand tentatively toward her but in his expression enraged her. "You hated James!" His face closed again. "Don't sit there and tell me you're sorry he's dead."

"We didn't get on, but I never wished him real harm." Trying to mollify her, Severus betrayed himself. His flat black gaze flicked to the small shape of the baby asleep on the bed.

"You were going to give my son to the Death Eaters. What did you have in mind for me? To the victor, the spoils?" Lily charged on. "Do you think I would have stayed with you after they killed my baby? You would have had to curse me."

Across the room, Severus's face went blank. Nausea and rage swelled inside her. "The Imperius curse. Was I supposed to be your pet? Your prize?" Lily had to wipe her face with the back of her hand. Even if she vomited, and she wanted to, she couldn't clear the revulsion from her body. "You're sick. Completely mad. Voldemort's welcome to you!"

Severus clutched suddenly at his left forearm. "Lily! Don't!"

"Voldemort!" she screamed. "I'm not afraid of a stupid name! They killed James and they won't have our baby!" Lily ran toward Harry's bed.

Severus grabbed her arms behind her back. "You... stupid... Gryffindor!" Lily elbowed him in the guts, knocking the breath out of him. Gasping, he straightened and shook her. "Don't say it!"

Lily crumpled. Severus held her close to keep her from falling. Her dark auburn hair, tangled and dirty, fell across his arms. A shock ran through Severus's tired body. Her scent, her sweat, her very breath against his skin thrilled him. In that moment, Severus Snape had what he always wanted: Lily Potter in his arms, unresisting. Gingerly, he laid her across the second bed. She drew up into a ball, her hoarse sobs never breaking.

Severus slumped into the chair by the window and held his forehead in both hands. He cursed his own weakness in saving the child. Lily was his weakness. He couldn't believe that his own mother could ever have loved him like Lily loved her son. Eileen Snape had failed to protect him so many times. She failed also to protect herself; she would never see her only child grown to manhood.

Lily's cries were muffled as she turned her face into the bed. Every long-suppressed instinct in Severus's body longed to hold her, to soothe her, but she would take no comfort from him now. Even if he refused, even if he fled, the Dark Lord had accepted his proposal. Lily Potter was too dangerous to live. She was suffered to exist as no more than a beautiful ornament, a fitting reward to a loyal servant.

Under the Imperius curse, Severus might well have compelled her body, but he would never have possessed her truly. Suffering appealed greatly to Lord Voldemort, the anguish of a Death Eater almost as savored as that of a foolhardy rebel. Severus's intentions were pure. He wanted only to take away her pain, to make her content. Severus knew Lily far better than she thought. She never would have stayed with him if she thought there was any hope for Potter or for the child. She would have fought.

Every night, Severus dreamed of her. Every night, she walked onward ahead of him through an oak forest strewn with autumn leaves. He called and called her name, but she couldn't hear him. Lily shone like a star, like the glowing silver liquid inside a Pensieve. In his dreams, she never held a baby. She was never in James Potter's loathsome embrace.

Severus ground his fists into both eyes. The Dark Mark burned and prickled on his arm. He had taken its vile curse willingly to protect his love, his one bright memory, the broken woman weeping on the bed. He had given himself to the darkness in her name and she hated him for it. He was useless, worthless, as before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been Britpicked, but I'd be glad to hear of any remaining errors. Thanks!


	5. Invisibility

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sirius, Hagrid, & Dorcas gather to share a meal and remember their friends. Funeral preparations continue in Godric's Hollow.

The sulfurous tang of overcooked cabbage wafted out the open door of Hagrid's cabin. Sirius sat outside on the rough-hewn wooden steps, shoulders slumped over, nearly motionless. His eyes were closed and his oily dark hair fell over his brow. He hadn't slept the night before; Hagrid's owl had found him just as he dozed off. He hadn't eaten since yesterday, either, and the smell of Hagrid's cabbage soup was starting to make him wish he had.

A creeling caw passed overhead. Sirius looked up with bland, tired eyes. Two night-winged thestrals, a mother and foal, flapped over the cottage. Blood from two freshly killed hares dripped from the mother's jaws and onto her iridescent black feathers. To the casual observer, it would have looked as if two mangled rodents were levitating themselves into a tree. The baby thestral squeaked to keep up with his mother, nearly crashing into her in his excitement. The mother's encouraging cries made Sirius's skin crawl.

Hagrid came out onto the steps and beamed. "Look a'that," he said proudly, wiping cabbagey hands on his boldly flowered apron. "She's teachin' 'im to hunt. Lord, but I love to watch 'em."

Hagrid tore his eyes away from his charges and fixed them once more on Sirius. Sirius had the funny idea that to Hagrid, he himself was just another small creature in need of nursing back to health. "Are you sure you're not hungry? Got a nice cabbage stew wi' ham... be ready in a half hour. I know yeh like ham." Sirius shook his head. "Listen, you gotta eat. Lily an' James wouldn' want yeh wastin' away."

"What they wanted was not to be fucking murdered, Hagrid."

"It's not your fault." The huge man settled heavily beside Sirius. Even seated, Hagrid's shoulders were a yard higher than his friend's. "I was their Secret-Keeper first. I let Peter take over for me. I hope he's all right. If anybody could screw things up, it's Peter. 'Dumbledore thought it should be me instead, because you have all those family connections with Death Eaters. Everyone's always suspected you!'" Sirius didn't bother to wipe his tears. "I don't know why I bought that load of shit. It was a crazy thing to do, switching Secret-Keepers. Peter seemed so worried, so I went along with it. I'm going to wring his neck."

"I know what it is to take the blame." Hagrid's voice was gentle. "There's more going on than we can see right now. James an' Lily were your best friends. They knew something could happen to 'em any time, so they made you Harry's godfather. Not Remus, not even Dumbledore. They chose Sirius Black. They thought you would do the best job protecting their boy. You're not gonna get very far on an empty stomach."

Sirius wiped his nose on the inside of his sleeve and looked up at Hagrid's vast and kindly face. "Thanks." Hagrid shrugged. "No, I mean, for everything. For making me take you to James and Lily's house last night."

Hagrid looked proud but embarrassed. "Gotta do it. I'm Dumbledore's man. When he let me in the Order this year, even tho' I hadn' even graduated Hogwarts, well, proudest moment of my life."

The two companions sat side by side for a long moment. Away in the autumn-leaved trees, the baby thestral squeaked with hunger. Its mother shredded another rabbit and offered the pieces tenderly to her foal. Sirius's eyes clouded once more as he thought of Lily and Harry. Before Lily was killed, had she known her son's fate?

"Boys," Dorcas called, picking her way sidelong down the hill path to keep from sliding in the loose gravel. The Auror looked exhausted. Her robes were crumpled as if she had slept in them and her pointed hat listing to one side.

"Dorcas!" Hagrid heaved himself off the wooden steps to help his friend. The entire structure bowed for a moment. "How is Lily's poor sister?"

"You were right, Sirius. They weren't exactly close, were they?" Dorcas took Hagrid's chivalry in stride and allowed him to hold her elbow as they went up the tall steps. "Mrs. Dursley is quite a piece of work, and that son of hers! I never had any children myself, so I suppose I can't say much." Dorcas took off her silver spectacles. She squinted hard at the glasses and wiped what looked like raw egg yolk from the lenses. "I think she's grieving. There was some bad blood there. Dumbledore told me a little, but not much. Lily and Snape knew each other when they were children, did you know that?"

Hagrid nearly dropped the stack of clean plates he was carrying to the table. "Really, now?" Sirius grumbled. "I thought everybody knew that. They were glued to each other when we started at Hogwarts. It was disgusting."

Curiosity brightened Dorcas's tired eyes. "Would you say they were still friendly when you left school?"

"Hell, no. Not since fifth or sixth year.  She finally said yes to James and that was it for them."

Dorcas and Sirius pulled themselves up into unnaturally tall kitchen chairs. "I do wonder how they fell out, exactly," she mused. "Whether or not it was a romantic dispute. That could make a big difference to the investigation.

"Ugh! Don't put me off my lunch." Hagrid ladled the cabbage soup into homely bowls. Dorcas sniffed and started to make a face, but she was too kind to refuse. Sirius grinned. Under the table, Dorcas kicked him.

Nobody talked much during lunch; it had been too long since any of them had sat down for a meal. Sirius managed to make a good meal on bread and butter, dipped lightly in the soup whenever Hagrid glanced his way.

"Great bread, Hagrid," Sirius said with his mouth full. Abashed, Hagrid stirred the kettle. "That's from th' castle."

"Don't fuss, dear. I've never been able to compete with the house-elves' baking myself." Dorcas sighed and leaned back in her chair. A yellow-and-black Hufflepuff pin glinted up from the collar of her work robes. "Sometimes I feel like I never should have left school in the first place. Nothing ever changes here. It's safe."

Sirius applied himself to buttering another slice of bread. "I don't know about that, Dorcas. It's great when you fit in, but when you don't, forget it." Dorcas gave Hagrid a half-smile over her mug of pumpkin juice. The huge man looked back at Dorcas with a sad little shrug. Sirius remembered, with a little shock, that Dorcas was Head Girl the year Hagrid was expelled from Hogwarts for opening the Chamber of Secrets. Growing up in Grimmauld Place, Sirius had heard of the event from a vastly different perspective: gleeful and gloating. Sirius pretended to be very busy stirring the remains of his soup and strained to keep from making eye contact with either of his friends.

"Kids can be real mean. I never thought you'd had that kind o' trouble, not with James an' the others to watch your back." Hagrid heaved himself to his feet and started clearing the dishes. Dorcas tried to slide down from her oversized chair to help, but Hagrid motioned for her to stay put.

Sirius laughed. "Yeah, they kept me out of a lot of trouble, but not all of it. Don't get on Bellatrix's bad side if you can help it. She kind of took it personally when I got sorted into the wrong House.  James and the guys always razzed me about it. He said I should change my Animagus form from a black dog to a sheep. The Black sheep, get it?"

Dorcas couldn't help a little smile. She reached over to pat Sirius's hand.

Hagrid made a "humph" sound and hung a cauldron-size tea kettle on a hook by the fire. "Those cousins of yours didn't rough you up at school, Sirius. I woulda heard about that."

"Nope. When I was lucky, they pretended I didn't exist. When they did remember me, I was sprouting purple tentacles somewhere. Lucky for me, Remus was really good at reversing hexes." Sirius rubbed at the back of his wrists.

Dorcas patted her lips with a spotted cloth napkin, smiling. "The tentacle jinx is quite a dark one, but it would have been funny to see." Sirius smirked.

"James sure thought so."

Hagrid snuffled loudly. "I suppose they'll bury James and Lily together."

"Yes. Tomorrow morning at eleven in Godric's Hollow. Dumbledore made the arrangements."

"Blimey, that's a bit close to the scene of the crime for my liking." Hagrid shuddered.

"Alastor and the Prewetts are securing the scene. Don't worry, Rubeus." Dorcas reached over and put her slender hand on top of Hagrid's massive fist. "Nothing bad is going to happen at the funeral." Tears leaked slowly into his tangled black beard. Dorcas's pale blue eyes fixed on Sirius.

"Yeah," said Sirius with false confidence. "I'm sure the Death Eaters wouldn't dare come by the funeral. There'll be too many people there with major firepower."

"We are _not_ going to turn James and Lily's burial into a melée," said Dorcas sharply.

Sirius was mutinous. "Not unless they start something first."

"We gotta concentrate on Harry," Hagrid reminded them. Blotchy-faced, Hagrid wiped his eyes on his flannel sleeve. "Sirius, we gotta find out where Snape and Harry might be."

"Jeepers, can you imagine Snape alone with a baby?" Dorcas and Hagrid exchanged dismayed glances. Sirius winced. Surely, Snape had sold the child to Voldemort by now, and Harry was dead or worse than dead.

"I gotta catch a couple hours of sleep," Hagrid said, "But we ought to ask around up at the school, and find out what Professor Snape's been up to lately. I sure haven't seen him 'round the castle."

Dorcas frowned. "I hadn't heard that Snape missed any classes before this morning. Dumbledore would have mentioned it."

"Who's covering his classes today?" Sirius wondered.

Professor Dumbledore himself, I think," Hagrid said. "Couldn't get anybody else on such short notice. That's where we'll go after a kip." Hagrid grinned at Sirius. "You can take the hammock out back, I know you boys always used to like to mess around out there."

A single bright memory of James and Remus roughhousing in the woods behind Hagrid's cabin nearly drove away the constant ache in Sirius's soul. James and Lily dead and going in the ground tomorrow morning. Sweet Merlin, what had gone wrong? It still seemed so unreal. Sirius curled up in the hammock and closed his eyes, willing sleep to come if only for a little while.

In the forest, thestrals called softly to one another. Far away, Sirius heard the horns of centaurs. With the sound of the wind in the trees, Sirius finally did sleep.

* * *

 

Gilbert Merrill straightened James Potter's glasses for the last time. Stripping off his protective gloves, he used his wand to dim the lights. Gilbert had grown up working in the family mortuary, and the special spells and charms came as second nature.

James and Lily Potter lay side by side in open caskets. Gilbert had worked hard to remove the fear from their expressions, replacing the horror of the Killing Curse with peace. Before the Aurors delivered the bodies, Gilbert hadn't had any idea who the Potters were or why they were hiding out in Godric's Hollow.

His mother's friend, old Bathilda Bagshot, was distraught over their deaths. Gilbert had run into her in the café when he took a break from work. "It's terrible, dear. James and Lily Potter were murdered."

"Yes. It's tragic. So young."

"They were friends of Dumbledore's... Word is that were under the Fidelius charm and betrayed." Bathilda wiped her eyes. "Poor dears. That old cottage was nearly blown apart. I went out as soon as I heard the screams, but I didn't dare to get any closer. I put some anti-Muggle charms over what's left of the house.  They won't see anything but an old ruin and some rosebushes."

The last part of the story was the worst by far. Bathilda had wept as she told him that morning, the poor thing. "James and Lily are dead, and nobody knows what happened to their dear little baby. The Ministry isn't saying a word. The papers haven't even mentioned the murders. There's no sign of Harry whatsoever! They say You-Know-Who..."

In the café, Gilbert had shushed the little old lady and made superstitious gestures behind his back. He didn't like to hear that name, not even in shorthand. Gilbert cleaned up the Death Eaters' handiwork, but he would rather continue pretending that everything was all right. Why make yourself visible by fighting back when all it would get you was hunted down and killed? He had a wife and four kids. He had to protect his family, didn't he?

Feeling uneasy, Gilbert washed his hands. He closed and locked the door to the viewing room, then locked the front door with the securest charm he could think of. It was four-fifteen; he thought he could make time to stop by the pub on the way home. He'd feel better with his friends and neighbors around him.

In the silent mortuary, one of the caskets glowed a putrid orange, deepening to a pea-green haze. Faint rays of yellow light stabbed outward from the corpse. An eerie, thrumming sound came from deep within the casket as the yellow light dimmed and went out. Dressed in the robes of a Death Eater, Peter Pettigrew lay beside his old friend and enemy, James Potter. No one but the mice in the walls bore witness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 10/2016: Wow. The line breaks. So sorry -- eek. Trying to fix them all!
> 
> I had a lot of help with this story from the members of a group which has long since gone to message board heaven -- Elderly Harry Potter Fans. I still keep in touch with many of the dear friends I made there. Mwah! *kisses*
> 
> For any spellwork you don't recognize, it's highly likely I (or one of my betas) made it up. I had a great deal of fun weaving invented spells into the storyline, with the consequences (good or bad) of the magic included. I'm happy to answer any questions here as long as the answers aren't spoilerific :)


	6. Protego

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Severus copes with a toddler.

Severus Snape was not accustomed to idleness. Daily, his students turned out terrible essays to excoriate with a sharp quill. Professor Slughorn had left the potions storeroom a disorganized swamp; Severus reserved an hour each day to winnow out the usable ingredients. It was a tedious task, but he gave enough detentions to ensure a constant work force. Since his prefects were nowhere near severe enough, there were always petty problems to deal with in the dormitories. If he had any free time left, he would read. The quiet rhythms of a solitary, academic life were enough for him, and he relaxed into them.

Something hard ran into the side of his foot. Severus flinched. The Potter boy was playing under the kitchen table. The toddler had appropriated one of his mother's shoes as a Muggle lorry, showing a high aptitude for exhaust sounds and horn blasts. He certainly knew how to fill his idle hours. The boy had been into the kitchen cupboards, dragged the clean clothes everywhere, and squeezed himself under the sofa. Severus tugged on the boy's feet to extract him and he ran off again, laughing madly.

Severus could not imagine such freedom. Even as a small child, Severus was circumspect. He learned very early to pattern his life around his father's demands. Silence was best, cleanliness vital, and meals were on time. He couldn't remember a time when he was free to play, when he trusted everyone around him.

Lily rolled onto her stomach and pulled the old feather pillow over her head. Every movement from her narrow cot brought Severus nervously to his feet. He didn't know how Lily would react to him when she woke. He had barely defended himself; he had let her go on believing herself a prisoner. Severus's weak mind kept repeating the same scripts, treading the same intimate paths. Holding her had only made it worse. He could still feel her in his arms, still smell the fragrance of her hair. This was nothing like his dreams. Lily would never thank him for saving her life. If it had not been for the child, she would have wished for death.

Severus turned the pages of his book, absorbing nothing from the text. He worried that the boy would cut himself or knock the rickety furniture over on his head. Severus remembered the little cages used to corral Muggle children. He could easily concoct a "play pen," shield and sound-proof it, and levitate it in the center of the room where the baby couldn't get into any further trouble. Brooding on this idea, Severus didn't notice when a sticky hand tugged at his robes.

"Mama?"

"Your mother's resting. Go and play." The boy just looked at him, uncomprehending.

"Go and play," Severus repeated.

"Baba," said the boy.

"Yes, whatever that means. Go play." Severus went back to his carefully kept copy of _Concealment and Disguise_. Severus was fortunate to have left the book in the pocket of his robes. Months ago, he'd been pressed to lend it to Rabastan Lestrange and had never expected to see it again. Severus frowned. He could just imagine what damage a baby could do to such a rare volume.

The noisy creature toddled away, his bare feet making slapping sounds on the patchy linoleum floor. In a too-short span of time, the child returned. Plainly delighted, he tugged at Severus's sleeve and pointed into the corner.

"I'm reading."

"Dat!" the boy insisted. Lily stirred in the bed.

"All right, but only to keep you quiet. You mustn't wake your mother." The boy grabbed Severus's forefinger and dragged him to the kitchen cupboards. His little hands were unexpectedly strong: Severus hated how damp and sticky they were.

The boy flung himself onto the dirty floor and pointed into a musty open cabinet. Severus got down on his knees and peered into the dark space. A long-legged brown spider dangled from a silken thread, busily wrapping a fat beetle for dinner.

"Pi-do."

"Yes, that's a house spider," Severus said. "They're quite common."

"Pido." The little boy squatted down to examine the creature's web. His fat fingers reached for the crawling spider.

"Careful, don't try to pick it up," Severus cautioned, catching his little wrist. The boy squirmed. "This kind could bite."

The baby seemed to understand, regarding Severus with solemn green eyes. He looked again at the icebox and struggled to stand, toddling back to the kitchen table. Making an unsuccessful attempt to climb into a chair, he fell on his bottom. His cloth diaper made a sibilant, squishing noise on the linoleum. Severus cringed.

The boy's expression trembled between frustration and sorrow. "Baba."

Severus was at a loss. He had no experience with young children. First-years were bad enough: sometimes, they even wet their beds. Thankfully at school there were house-elves to handle the laundry.

"What is it you need, boy?"

"Mama," he said, making a direct line for Lily's bedside. Severus caught the child by the shoulder and turned him around.

"Quiet, you'll wake her. Let me try to help you." The boy eyed Severus with mistrust. Lily might well flay him if he tampered with the child's mind. A gentle brush, no more than a fingertip, would show him what the boy needed.

Severus knelt down before the child, taking his wand lightly in his right hand. "Hold still, now. _Legilimens_." The small creature flinched with surprise, but didn't seem to be experiencing any pain. Severus made the connection.

The first impressions from the little boy's mind were comfort and complete trust. Flowing, dark red hair curtained everything and contained everything. Even Lily's scent surfaced in the unformed mind, floral and warm. Severus felt a wild stab of envy for this little creature. He squashed the emotion and sharpened his focus.

"What is it you need from me?"

The child's mind turned to the image of a baby bottle filled with milk. The solution was so simple, Severus almost laughed. Distracted for a split second, Severus was confronted by James Potter's hated face. So very large in his son's mind, Potter had an unnatural size and solidity. Severus felt as if he himself were the size of a small baby, sitting in his father's lap and looking up at the underside of his stubbled chin.

"Dada," said the boy. Severus tasted the baby's anxiety and confusion, a sharp contrast to the security he drew from Lily's memory. He drew back from the child's mind so slowly, he was certain he had left no trace of his visit.

The child still sat on the floor before him. He looked toward the door of the cottage, then back at Severus with a question in his eyes.

Severus felt he had to explain even though he knew the boy would not understand. "Your father won't be coming through that door, Harry. He's dead."

The child rose methodically to his feet, pushing up from the floor with both hands. He padded over to the old-fashioned icebox and stared at the door handle. Severus conjured a baby bottle and filled it with milk from the tip of his wand. Screwing the top back on, he handed it to the baby; he plopped down on his bottom and drank.

Severus stood and watched the boy for a long time. James Potter was dead: not by Severus's own hand, but by his agency. He and Pettigrew had formed the plan together. He himself had volunteered to present Lily to the Dark Lord as nothing but a bounty in the endless war.

Severus knew he could have prevented Potter's murder. He could have saved him in the churchyard if he'd been only a few moments earlier. When Severus arrived he was blinded by the bright green flash of the Killing Curse, and Potter was already falling face-first into the gravel. Of course if he'd offered help, Potter would likely have killed him on sight just for being Severus Snape.

The child drained the rest of the milk from the bottle and mutely held it up for a refill. He seemed subdued but content, full of milk and tired from his explorations. As Severus watched from the sagging armchair by the window, The boy climbed up on the sofa and drowsed off to sleep, clutching the bottle tight to his chest.

Severus raised his wand and dried the nappy with the simple charm he had overheard Lily using earlier in the day. He had no desire to attempt a full change, but he wanted to sit on that sofa without getting wet and smelly. He used a threadbare quilt to cover the child's legs.

Satisfied that his young charge was asleep and Lily still drowsing on her cot, Severus went out for fresh air. The autumn twilight advanced as quickly as the tide up the pebbled beach. The lonely thatch-roofed cottage huddled back against the grassy dunes. Scrubby trees grew up around the sides and back, shielding it from the worst of the winds. Whitewashed walls made the cottage glow in the fading rays of sun.

An unexpected wave of guilt assailed him. What would Dumbledore think of all this? Surely, the old man knew that Severus could never permit any harm to come to Lily Potter. His oath to Dumbledore was as real as the Dark Mark branded into his flesh and equally as painful. Severus's oath to Lily, to the Order of the Phoenix, was written not on his skin (where it would be visible to anyone) but deep inside, safe from probing eyes. It was written in his bones, in his blood, in the very breath of his body. A double oath, a double bind. Without boasting, Severus knew he was the best Occlumens of his generation. His mind was impenetrable to anyone but Dumbledore or Lord Voldemort himself.

As Severus rubbed at his left forearm, the skin began to burn and tingle. He swore out loud, pulling back his sleeve. The Mark swelled and coruscated under his pale, sallow skin, growing distinct even in the rapidly fading light. The Dark Lord called, and all of their lives depended on a swift response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I loved writing this chapter. My little boy was about this age when I started the story-- toddlers!


	7. Disillusionment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snape and Lily work on a plan.

"Lily."

"Bugger off, James."

Cold hands shook her again, unrelenting. James's hands were always warm. Lily rubbed the grit from her eyes. Fresh tears threatened to wash them clean. She remembered where she was and the things she had said. James was gone. Peter had killed him.

When her eyes opened, Severus was kneeling beside the bed looking stiff and uncomfortable.

"You've got to get up. It's burning."

"What's burning?" He gave her a pointed look she remembered from their childhood. Drawing back the sleeve of his robe, he exposed a twisted, scarred tattoo in the shape of a serpent and skull. Lily met his steady black eyes.

"Sit up and listen to me. When I brought you from Godric's Hollow, I was supposed to put you under the Imperius curse. My orders were to bring you and the child to face the Dark Lord. He wanted the child from your hands." Lily's cry burned unvoiced in the back of her throat. She stared at the sofa across the room, where Harry drowsed under a faded quilt. His little palms lay open, relaxed in sleep. An empty bottle lay close by; Severus had been taking care of the baby.

"The Dark Lord would have Potter's wife and son in one stroke. He would have honored me above all his followers. You do remember what was intended for you?"

Lily sat up in bed and rubbed her face with the back of her hand. "You're supposed to keep me." Severus stared into her tired eyes, his expression unreadable. Lily hardened her mind against the coming onslaught. If it weren't for Harry, Lily wouldn't even fight back. She would welcome it, submerging her own grief and pain.

Severus pushed forcefully up from the floor. "You're justified in not trusting me. I wouldn't either if I were you, but hear me out. I was supposed to deliver you to Him last night. I've already thrown away what little remained of my life for you. If the Dark Lord doesn't kill me for breaking my vows, then Albus Dumbledore surely will."

Hope wove fragile fingers around Lily, bearing her up again. "You swore a vow to Dumbledore?"

"The same vow you swore to him, the same as your precious Potter." Severus laughed, the premature lines around his eyes and mouth disappearing in his sudden mirth.

"Where is it, then?" Lily challenged.

Severus smirked. "Where is what?"

Sometimes Lily remembered very well why she had ended her friendship with Severus Snape. Her wand lay beside her, half-buried in the blankets. She balled her fingers into her fist to keep from picking it up and cursing a hole in his fat head.

"Where are the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix?"

Severus stared down at his forearm. He gripped his wrist as if to prevent himself from touching the Mark again. "Elphias Doge's house. Rowan Lane, Bexton, Cheshire."

"I thought you were so high up with the Death Eaters. I thought you were his favorite. Every rumor we heard had you eating out of his hand."

"He favors me." Lily's scorn wavered at the pain in Severus's voice. "He sent me to Hogwarts and I was ready to serve him from within, but then came the prophecy."

"How do you know about that?"

"I overheard it." Severus turned away from her and rose to his feet, walking the length of the shadowed room. The uneven floor creaked with his heavy footsteps. "Sybill Trelawney told Dumbledore. I was listening."

Lily watched him with a chill of surprise. "That's why we went into hiding. The prophecy said something about Harry. Professor Dumbledore thought so, anyway." She pleated the woolen blanket in her hands as she spoke. "James didn't want to do it. He told Dumbledore that hiding was for cowards and he wouldn't be mewed up like bait in a trap. He thought we could do more good out in the world, fighting back. We might never have a baby anyway, we were barely out of school." Lily smiled. "It didn't take very long after all."

Lily caught a slight choke of revulsion in Severus's voice, but he recovered quickly. "The Dark Lord is convinced that the prophecy is about your son. He planned to neutralize the threat before the boy grew strong enough to fight." He folded his hands in his sleeves. "Pettigrew begged for the assignment. I was sent along as an assurance that it would be completed. We were supposed to go together to Godric's Hollow, kill Potter, and remove you, if you could be taken alive."

"You asked for me in return for James and Harry," Lily said, disgusted. "I know that part." "Something went wrong. Pettigrew called Potter out of the house before we were supposed to meet. He baited him with some cock-and-bull story about Lupin and Black being captured."

"Why would he do that?"

"I expect he wanted all the glory... wanted to show me up. He barely had any skill or power of his own. He's never been any good to the Death Eaters except as a link to you and Potter. That wears on a man's pride."

"Did he really hate us that much?"

Severus didn't answer -- he busied himself with rolling their stolen clothing back into the paper sacks.

Of course James would go if he thought his friends were in trouble. But why hadn't he woken Lily? Why had James so carelessly broken the Fidelius charm? In his heart, Lily thought angrily, James was still a schoolboy and Lily his prefect. Sneaking past her was a joy, an end in itself. Severus was right. James's confidence in his friends, in that blasted cloak, kept him from seeing the danger. James had never really grown up, and now he'd never have the chance.

Lily pushed herself upright with both hands. Her diaphragm pressed painfully inward, crushing her lungs with a cry of agony ready to burst free. She forced a deep breath, and then another, pulling away from the scream before it took her under. She could not let her grief control her again before Harry was safe.

Across the room, Severus was shaking, his heart visibly pounding even through the loose black robes. "We have to move quickly. The Mark is burning again. He wants to bring me to account for last night. You'll have to come, too. _Legilimens_!"

Lily reacted instinctively to the psychic attack, clamping down on her mind. Panting, Severus drew back, the tip of his wand wavering. She raised a hand to slap him across the face, but the look in his eyes stopped her. "What the hell did you do that for?"

"Testing your reflexes." Severus rubbed his cheek as if she'd slapped him after all. He sank slowly to a kitchen chair.

Lily glared at him and went to kneel by the sofa where Harry was squirming and rubbing his eyes. "I'm not going with you."

"Lily, it's the only way to buy more time. I can't appear before him without you or he'll know something is wrong." She lifted the sleepy toddler into her arms and he melted against her shoulder.

"Well, then, that's your problem. I'll take Harry somewhere else; I'll take him to Greenland if I have to."

Severus smiled without humor. "You're not much smarter than Potter after all. _You are marked for death_. If your heart is to continue beating, it will be as a prisoner. No matter where you run, they'll find you. They know everything about you. Believe me." Severus's pain deepened the grooves around his mouth. "I bought your life at a rather high price, but there's no reprieve for the boy."

"I'll take the risk."

"What makes you think," Severus said with sudden fury, "that you are safer on your own? You don't know them as I do. You don't know the way they operate. One woman alone with a baby?" Lily was insulted. She opened her mouth to retort but he cut her off. "Yes! I know you're powerful. You could hold your own for a little while. But without help? I don't think you'd last a week."

His words were openly scornful, but his eyes said something different. "Lily, think of Harry. Please."

"Do you seriously think I've ever done anything else?" Harry grabbed at her hands and Lily squeezed back. "I won't go on a suicide mission. He needs me."

Silence stretched between them.

"What would James think of you right now?" Lily turned to look at Severus with surprise. He'd never used James's first name before. "What would James Potter do? If he were here right now, would he run or fight?"

"That's neither here nor there--"

"I think it is!"

"It's a little different with a child," she said carefully. "James would have done anything for Harry, including staying as far away from Death Eaters as possible."

"Is that why he ran out of the house last night?" Relentless, Severus stalked toward her. Harry startled at the swinging of his robes with his long-legged stride. "Potter was stupid but he was fighting. Do you really think he'd want you to crawl down a hole and stay there? The Order and the Ministry haven't a prayer and you know it. The Dark Lord grows more powerful each year. He claims to be immortal. Do you plan to outlive him?"

Lily carried Harry to the window and stared at the sea where the last rays of sun slipped below the horizon. If she gave up, her whole life would be spent in hiding, always one step from disaster. If she went along with Severus's plan, she would risk even more. "What you're planning to do isn't fighting. It's sneaking around. It's making them believe they have what they want. It can't last."

Severus's smile was tight and ironic. "Yes, that's why I'm so good at it. It's their kind of fight. Half of the Dark Arts is deception, avoiding a true confrontation whenever you can. How else have they survived so long, outnumbered as they are?"

"Shut up. I'll do it."

Severus showed no sign of gratitude or relief -- he swung immediately into the plan. "You'll need to behave as if I put you under the Imperius curse. You'll have to be quite convincing with the effects."

"I know." Fear made her words come quickly. "We've gotten away three times - I don't know how we did it the last time. We were trying to rescue the McKinnons but we got there too late." Lily's voice quavered at the memory. "If Sirius hadn't been with us, we might not have made it. Vol-" Severus' eyes narrowed. "I mean, You-Know-Who cursed James. He jumped in front of me; it got him in the shoulder. It never did heal properly."

Lily had long suspected that Voldemort relented only if he wanted his victims to live. He toyed with them like a ghastly spider, only to consume them later. "Severus, we can't take Harry anywhere near him. Please."

"I agree. We'll have to leave him somewhere safe." "Dumbledore!" Relief flooded her; this nightmare would soon be over and Harry would be safe at Hogwarts.

"No, not Dumbledore. My teacher, Myra Spring." Perplexed, Lily frowned at him. "I studied with her after leaving school. She's an herbalist, a potion maker. She lives up in the Welsh mountains with her daughter."

Lily flared up. "That's a ridiculous idea. Some crazy hermit witch? Harry's my son, and I want him to go to Professor Dumbledore, not a stranger."

Severus gave a sudden cruel bark of laughter. "Don't give that old man any more chances. He's meddled enough."

"It sounds to me like you're in this mess because you went to Dumbledore with your problems in the first place." Judging by his long pause, Lily thought she might have hit her mark.

"There is no such thing as absolute safety. If we can't convince the Dark Lord that Harry is dead and that you are my prisoner, it all falls apart. One lie leads to another and another." Severus got up, shouldering past Lily on his way to the darkened window. The sleeve of his coarse black robe trailed over the skin of her forearm and she shivered. "Going to Dumbledore would only hasten our end. The old man is surrounded by dozens of people. Who knows how many more spies there are?"

Lily reluctantly conceded the point. The baby fussed and Lily lifted him to her shoulder. "Are you sure you trust this Myra person?"

"Think how many people are in and out of Hogwarts on any given day. Students, teachers, staff, and believe me, they're not all on Dumbledore's side. The castle is thick with charms, but few spells can prevent human betrayal."

His words brought Peter's cheerful face sharply to mind. "If Peter could turn, I suppose anybody could. But what if something happens and we don't make it back?"

"If we don't return by tomorrow night, Myra will deliver him to Dumbledore."

"Sirius is Harry's godfather. I imagine Dumbledore will arrange for an adoption." Severus gave an incredulous snort. Lily had her own misgivings, but she'd never voice them in front of him. "I know you hate each other, so you don't have to make that face. Sirius loves Harry. He'd make it work."

Seeking comfort, Harry wound his little hand through his mother's hair. To save her son, Lily would abandon him with total strangers. To purchase her own life, she would present herself to Voldemort's mercy. It was a crazy idea, worthy of James at his wildest. If James could see her now, she didn't know whether he'd be proud or completely mental with rage.

If Lily gave herself away in the smallest fashion, she would die, and probably Severus would as well. She watched him pace and think, that proud nose and brow so familiar in the twilight. Lily had loved him once. She had been hurt by him, livid with him, resented him, feared him at times, but she didn't want to see him die. He had saved her son.

"There's one more thing we need to settle. As far as the Death Eaters are concerned, Harry is dead. We need to decide how and when it happened, and we need to be absolutely consistent with one another."

Lily pressed her cheek to Harry's warm forehead. She felt his heartbeat and his steady breathing. It was never easy for a mother to talk about what she saw when her child was in danger. Horror movies ran inexorably through her mind. All the possibilities of harm were laid out before her in an instant, all the ways she could lose him. It was both a gift and a curse; James always said that fathers didn't have it.

When she spoke her voice was raspy. "You were trying to Stun me and you hit him by accident. One bolt would be enough to stop a baby's heart."

"Plausible. It makes sense that I would be afraid to appear before him without the child. There are other complications, but I'll think of something."

"Wait, Severus." Lily caught his arm. "Can you resist if he uses Legilimency? I know you're good, but he's supposed to be the best."

"Then we won't give Him a reason to suspect anything. He trusts me, Lily. And I'm stronger than you think." Severus grabbed the paper sack of extra clothes from the floor. Lily scooped up the baby bottle and swathed the protesting boy in a torn cotton quilt. Their eyes met and Lily nodded. Severus swept her under his arm and they turned as one, leaving their refuge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my line breaks
> 
> How did I let you slip by?
> 
> apologies to all


	8. Imperius

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snape presents Lily to Lord Voldemort.

Lily retained only vague impressions of Myra Spring's mountain home. She and Severus stood in a close-grown forest lit by the last fingers of sunset. Lily pulled the ragged quilt tighter around Harry's shoulders. The toddler squirmed eagerly and cried to be let down. Harry had never been in the woods before. He had never felt the crunch of a thick layer of brown pine needles under his feet, never pushed grasping branches out of the way to make a path. It hurt to know how much her son had never experienced.

"Myra's cottage is back there. She's got it cleverly hidden." Severus plucked a red-brown rowan leaf and whispered a single word in Welsh. The sheltering trees drew back their branches, framing a stone cottage with a hand-hewn front door. Harry laughed out loud and his delighted grin was all for Severus.

Voices called to them from inside. Lily couldn't move from where she stood, knee-deep in bracken. She couldn't let the baby go. "Lily, come inside," called Severus impatiently.

Lily held the baby toward him. Her words tumbled out in a rush. "Take him. I can't do it. Please tell your friends to be kind to him." Lily kissed Harry's cheek and pushed him toward Severus. Surprised, he reached for the baby and settled him awkwardly in his arms.

"Mama?" Harry craned his head back toward his mother. His round little face was creased with worry.

"Be a good boy. Mummy will be back for you soon. Mummy loves you." Severus gave her an anxious, warning glance. Lily fought to master her tears as Severus carried the baby inside. The glad exclamations of two women were cut off by the closing door.

The forest grew dark. Night animals crept from their dens to rattle the underbrush. Lily struggled to push down her emotions, locking the shutters of her mind and heart. It was essential that she not be questioned. Strong but untested, she would not be able to withstand a concentrated mind probe. It truly was a suicide mission. Panic spread in her stomach and fluttered to her cold arms and legs.

At last, Severus drew the heavy door closed behind him. As he passed an unseen perimeter, spelled vines and brambles drew back around the house. When Lily stared into the branches, she saw nothing but the first glimmers of starlight through cross-hatched branches of rowan, spruce, and fir. The house was completely invisible.

Severus thrust a bunch of dried leaves and flowers into Lily's face.  They scratched at her skin. Startled, she tried to bat them away.

"Smell these," he ordered. Lily sniffed. Severus held the sharp-edged stems closer. "Fill your nose and mouth. Concentrate."

Lily choked at the dusty smell. "What are these?"

"Mugwort and valerian. Much stronger than anything we ever got at Hogwarts. The combined effect will mimic the Imperius curse. They'll strengthen your mind and take away fear."

Severus bent close to examine Lily's face in the starlight. She stared back at the hidden glints of light in his black eyes, at strands of his hair lifting in the slight breeze. Severus waited several minutes, watching her closely. Finally, he snapped his fingers directly in front of Lily's face. Satisfied, he grasped her tightly around the waist and Disapparated.

Severus and Lily emerged in a shadowed gatehouse. Gargoyles and carved beasts thronged the ceiling in garish profusion, lit from below by silent green torches. Castle Lestrange was a folly, a miniature, constructed to satisfy a vanity. Where a true castle would be situated on a defensible height, Castle Lestrange lay in a wooded valley beside a rushing stream. Dark magic provided all the necessary safeguards.

Severus led her down a cobbled path toward the gatehouse. Lily stumbled on a loose stone and he jerked at her elbow to bring her upright. Passively, she held tighter to Severus's arm, following him across a small wooden drawbridge. As they stepped into the gatehouse, the bridge rose behind them on noiseless chains and threw closed its own iron bolt. Lily wiped her mind clean of thought, clean of fear.

Rodolphus Lestrange greeted Severus with grim surprise. The Death Eater wore his hair long and wavy, tied back with a black velvet ribbon. His dress robes were immaculately pressed and trimmed with French cuffs in white satin. Pale, reddened eyes wandered down Lily's shape.

"You're tardy, Snape. The Dark Lord summoned you for six o'clock precisely." Lestrange let himself smile at Lily's wrinkled flannel shirt and bell-bottomed blue jeans. "I hope the woman was worth it."

"That's none of your concern." Severus spoke with sharp authority, belying his youth. Lily felt a faint shiver of pride but let it pass by. All her impressions, all her emotions, were running away from her, slipping downhill. She let them go.

The steps down to the Great Hall were shallow and uneven. Lily tripped again. Her heel caught in the cuff of her blue jeans, tearing a ragged hole. She moved like a corpse reanimated, an inferius, running only on forward momentum.

Lestrange held up his hand, entering the Great Hall before them. "Severus Snape and Lily Potter, my Lord." A rush of whispers circled the room. The Death Eaters were unmasked. In their black robes, they made a ghastly parody of Hogwarts gatherings. Their women wore evening gowns, and their lovely faces were blank, schooled to betray nothing. Untouched meals lay on bone china plates before them.

Dressed in flowing black, a tall, thin shape emerged from a shadowed alcove. A heavy, carved chair shaped like a throne pulled itself back from the table. Attenuated limbs folded like a praying mantis as Voldemort seated himself. Severus and Rodolphus Lestrange fell to the stone floor in genuflection.

Between them, Lily wobbled on her feet. A jet of scalding water blasted the small of her back and  forced her painfully to her knees. Bellatrix Lestrange held her walnut wand in rigid fingers. Twirled atop her head, her dark, curling hair was caught by combs in the shape of silver serpents with glimmering emerald eyes.

"Kneel before your Master, Mudblood!"

"That will be all, Madame Lestrange. Rise, Severus." Snape bowed over the skeletal hand and closed his eyes. "The Potter wench is here; where is the child?" Voldemort was chillingly courteous. "I'm sure you have an adequate explanation."

Snape fell to his hands and knees. "Master, I beg you to forgive me. The boy is dead." An incredulous murmur swept down the long table. Voldemort rose. Lily felt a faint impulse to run screaming from the room, but the mugwort and valerian held sway. "I thought you understood the terms of our agreement. Was I not sufficiently clear? _Crucio!_ " 

Severus gasped in pain. The Death Eaters averted their eyes, all but Bellatrix Lestrange. She laughed and regarded her Master with passionate pride. 

"My Lord! Please, I can explain!" Very slowly, Voldemort lowered his wand. On the floor, Severus's body went slack. Blood trickled from his nose but he made no effort to wipe it away. "She fought me, my Lord. I tried Stunning her to get to the brat, but it hit a mirror and ricocheted back. A full-force Stunner was too much for him."

At the table, Narcissa Malfoy pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. Her husband tapped at her elbow, forcing her hand down.

Tears mingled with the blood on Severus's face. "When she realized the child was dead, she went berserk. She would have flattened the place. I put her under the Imperius curse immediately."

"Ah, Severus, I wish I'd witnessed that. She was glorious?"

"She was a marvel."

"So like a lioness when her cub is taken." Voldemort rose slowly and walked to Lily's side. He extended his waxen, brittle-looking fingers to help her rise, but his hand had the strength and feeling of granite. "What did you do with the body?"

On the floor, Severus coughed up more blood and rubbed at his throat. The Cruciatus curse caused pain for hours after it was removed, leaving nerves and muscles raw and fatigued. Voldemort's impatience grew visibly as Severus tried to speak. "I disposed of it permanently, My Lord. In the sea."

"How clumsy. You should have brought it with you. Didn't Pettigrew teach you that spell?" To Lily, Voldemort sounded like Professor McGonagall when she was disgruntled with a student failing to catch an important principle. Outside the trance, she might have laughed but on some level she knew how deadly mirth would be.

Lord Voldemort examined Lily's hair, filthy and knotted. He stared into her bloodshot green eyes and fingered her threadbare Muggle clothing. "Severus always spoke so highly of your beauty, your talent." Rosier and Mulciber laughed, and Voldemort waved them to silence. "The last time we met, my dear Mrs. Potter, I asked you and your blood traitor husband a question."

Lily looked blankly into the red, slit-pupiled eyes. She could feel the mugwort and valerian draining from her system and panic swelling once more in her gut.

"I honored Potter with an invitation to join us. His ideals were foolish, but his blood more than worthy, if he would only come to his senses. Were you aware we shared common ancestry?" A prideful smile twisted his reptilian face. To Lily, his smile was a thousand times worse than his disapproval. "You could say that Potter was my distant cousin. Even your culled mongrel puppy carried the same exalted blood, the purest in the Wizarding world. Far purer than the Lestranges: purer, even, than the Blacks."

Ignoring Bellatrix's furious scowl, Voldemort led Lily closer to the grand marble fireplace. Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy were seated closest to them. Narcissa grabbed Lucius's hand under the table as their master drew near. The Dark Lord lifted Lily's chin in his bony fingers. His breath on Lily's face was cold. "Joining such noble blood with your filth mystifies me. However, I believe Severus understands quite well." Severus remained impassive as his friends at the table chuckled. "You failed me, Severus. Do you deserve to keep the spoils? Perhaps I will award them to a more faithful servant. Mulciber would gladly take your leavings. Meanwhile, you have all waited long enough for your meal."

At the mention of dinner, Lily's stomach growled. She thought faintly of how long it had been since she had eaten anything. At the table, one of the younger Death Eaters reached for his outermost fork. His neighbor slapped fearfully at his hand.

"Bellatrix, take Snape's little plaything upstairs and get her into some respectable clothing."

"My Lord! I haven't anything to spare!"

Voldemort flared his slit nostrils. "That is not my concern. Do not delay us further." Bellatrix grabbed Lily by the arm and dragged her out of the hall. Lily turned a pleading gaze back to Severus. He had not risen from the floor.

"Go and obey her," Severus rasped out. Lily hesitated. "Go!" he shouted.

Bellatrix shoved Lily up the wide limestone stairs. The tip of her wand pressed mercilessly against the fresh burn at the small of her prisoner's back. Inside, the bedchamber was as luxuriously furnished as the rooms below. Green flames danced in burnished sconces along the walls.A large silver vase overflowing with nightshade, stood upon the mantle.

Bellatrix slammed the mitered oak door behind her. "Posey!" she shouted. A startled house-elf tumbled out of a mirrored cupboard. Dressed in stained, threadbare scraps of towel, the elf was young and slight. Long, caramel-colored hair straggled back between her ears.

"Mistress needs Posey?"

"Wash this filthy creature. Quickly! She makes me sick."

Bellatrix shoved Lily into the dark bathroom and kicked Posey inside after her, slamming the door. Hot water sprayed from nowhere, drenching Lily and her clothes. Half a dozen grooming implements attacked from above, wielded heedlessly by the trembling house-elf. Lily slipped on the wet marble floor and hit her knee on a carved onyx toilet.

Her wand slid out of her pocket and came to rest in a soapy puddle at her feet. Posey picked up the willow wand with shaking fingers. Lily could not suppress a pleading glance at the house-elf. Posey made a minute gesture of refusal, all she dared to betray. The house-elf tiptoed to the door and cracked it open. Lily tried to gather what remained of her wet clothes around her.

"What should I do with her things, Mistress? And her wand?"

"Give me the wand. Burn the Muggle rags." Posey pushed Lily's shirt, blue jeans, and shoes into the fire. The smell of burning leather made the elf retch. Bellatrix aimed an enraged kick at Posey, sending her skittering to safety. Bellatrix herself shoved Lily to her knees and pulled a comb through her damp hair. Lily winced, then remembered too quickly that she was not supposed to react. Luckily, the Death Eater was too deep in her own fury to notice.

"He touched you! The most glorious, the most powerful! Stand up, Mudblood!" Bellatrix reached for her wand. Lily braced herself for a curse.

A green satin gown flew out of the wardrobe, lacing itself so tightly that Lily had trouble breathing. From an awkward, knee-length hem, the gown fell to a fishtail train. The sleeveless bodice felt achingly tight across the bust, but fit well enough through the waist and hips.

Posey crawled out from under the ornate bedstead carrying a pair of silver slippers. They were several sizes too small for Lily. A pearl-handled paper knife lay on the writing table by the bed. A Muggle fairy tale flashed into Lily's mind, Petunia's favorite, where the evil stepsisters chopped off their own toes to fit in a glass slipper:Cinderella. Lily let out a long breath as the house-elf spread her tiny, knuckly fingers, lengthening the shoe bed.

"Mistress, I can make the gown longer as well?"

"No. This is enough not to shame me." Bellatrix flexed Lily's wand. "You've done well, Posey." Sobbing with relief, the elf crept under the bed. Tiny fingers pulled the brocaded bed skirt across to conceal her hiding place.

Bellatrix pushed Lily out into the corridor. Lily saw the ghost of her own reflection in a tall, gilt-framed mirror. Her damp hair shone with bronze in the shifting, underwater light. So tightly laced, the bottle-green gown drew her body into a shape it could not have held otherwise. Lily barely recognized herself. She was a Medusa: a figure of fear, of desire. It was a signal she desperately did not want to send. Downstairs, Lord Voldemort waited in judgment. Lily shivered as Bellatrix shoved her toward the staircase.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a difficult time with this chapter & the next. Bella_Portia, datbenik513, and Pookha were incredibly helpful in helping me "translate" the spellwork as well as providing support and awesomely twisted suggestions for my first full scale action scene in a fanfic.
> 
> The enchanted rowan hedge is inspired by James A. Hetley's marvelous urban fantasy novel _The Summer Country_.


	9. Unbreakable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lily and Snape fight the Death Eaters.

Severus leaned heavily on the polished walnut bannister. He had cleaned the blood from his face but he looked terrible, his customary pallor even worse than usual. At the sight of Lily and Bellatrix coming down the stairs, he straightened.

Bellatrix Lestrange trailed Lily's wand across Severus's chest. He reached for the slender weapon but Bellatrix stowed it in her robes. "Naughty, naughty. Pets don't get wands, silly boy."

Severus's shadowed eyes met Lily's. In their depths, she saw a flicker of anguish, of hopelessness. He helped her down from the stairs, and Lily gave his hand an encouraging squeeze. They were still alive and hope remained that they would return to Harry. Every moment they survived shifted the balance in their favor. Severus returned the pressure of her fingers.

"This is much more suitable," said Lord Voldemort. He gestured to the assembled Death Eaters and their women, raising his glass of wine. "I give you Severus Snape: the conqueror of Harry Potter!"

Voldemort's mocking toast raised a cheer. The Death Eaters raised their glasses, draining them swiftly. House-elves rushed to the table to refill the hastily emptied vessels. Posey nearly spilled her bottle of Burgundy but caught it just in time.

Seated at the Dark Lord's right hand, Severus was offered the best portions from each dish. Voldemort drank sparingly, but he smiled approval at his followers as they gorged themselves on the rich repast. Lily felt queasy watching them: greed and gluttony, consumption and lust. She sat mutely at Severus's side, staring into her plate. She was starving but fear suppressed her appetite. Her mouth was so dry, she thought she might choke.

"Eat," ordered Severus. Lily's hand moved woodenly to her fork and knife. She was very conscious of Voldemort's scarlet gaze on her hands. She cut her first slice of meat, chewing it mechanically. The food stuck in her mouth. "Drink!" he commanded. Her shaking hand went to her wine glass. Envious looks passed between Mulciber and Rosier.

"This is delicious," said Narcissa Malfoy. She laid her silver fork and knife aside with courtly manners. "Dear brother Rodolphus, do tell me your secret?"  

Lestrange patted his chin with a hemstitched linen napkin. "It's tadfoal," he said, inclining his head to Narcissa. "A young hippocampus, hunted in the marshes of Brittany." Lily swallowed hard. Only Dark wizards would ever eat such a magical creature. She felt guilty and soiled as if she had killed it herself.

Beside her, Severus nodded and kept eating. He polished his plate with bread to catch the last of the gravy and then brushed his foot along hers, glaring at her plate. Revolted or not, she had to keep up the charade. Lily chewed the meat so many times it lost all flavor, and then she picked at the roast vegetables.

Walden Macnair beckoned to an old house-elf laboring under a marble pepper grinder. When the house-elf finished grinding pepper onto his plate, Macnair smacked him casually out of the way. "Anybody hear from Wormtail?" he growled as the frail creature went flying.

"The coward must have run," Snape disparaged. He leaned back from the table, stretching his long legs. "I never saw him last night. He was supposed to be at the Potters'."

"Blaming poor ickle Wormie?" Bellatrix taunted. A little tipsy, she twirled a nearly empty goblet in her fingers.

"Tell me, Severus, did you have fun with her?"

"Fun?"

"Come, now. You've had the Mudblood for nearly a full day. You were late reporting to Our Lord, and you know what a mistake that is. Don't tell me you haven't enjoyed yourself." Severus's neck turned a dull red. "Don't be shy! Or couldn't you figure out what to do with her?"

"Shut up!" Severus held his wand on Bellatrix's heart. Her laugh pealed with mad hilarity. Rodolphus tugged at her elbow, but Bellatrix ignored him.

"If you haven't got any ideas I've got plenty," leered Mulciber.

"Shut up, I said!" Severus was coming unhinged. He raised his wand and fired a Silencing Curse straight at Mulciber. Livid, Snape's school friend jumped up from his chair and countered with his own Stunning Jinx. Two of the Death Eaters' women screamed and ducked under the table, dragging their silken evening gowns through puddles of spilled wine and gravy.

 _Accio wand, Accio wand, Accio wand!_ thought Lily desperately. Bellatrix had placed an Impenetrable Charm on her pocket. Lily couldn't break it with a non-verbal spell. She lifted her napkin to her lips and pretended to wipe her mouth. " _Accio wand!_ " she hissed. Nothing happened.

A pale brown-and-white streak flashed between the Death Eaters' knees. Posey the house-elf  was running for safety. If Lily could just get hold of her - she slid off her chair, landing under the table, and grabbed Posey just in time.

Lily held the struggling house-elf in both hands. "My wand! Please!"

"Posey can't, Mistress will kill her!"

"You hate Bellatrix, I know you do! Help me and I'll get you out of here, I promise!" Posey turned bulging, sorrowful eyes on Lily. The rest of the melée slowed to a halt, frozen in the eternal swing of the polished brass pendulum of the grandfather clock. Posey reached forward and Lily's wand flicked instantly into her spindly hand. Lily opened her mouth to thank the little elf. Posey smiled sadly.

"If Mistress ever found out that Posey helped you, Lily Potter, Posey would be dead faster than you could boil a pot of water." She pressed the willow wand into Lily's sweaty palm and Disapparated with a crack, lost in the din of the battle.

Lily shoved her chair back, scrambling up into her seat beside Severus. He was breathing hard, obviously in pain, but he kept firing curses at Rosier and Malfoy. The Dark Lord's cut-crystal goblet shattered, hit by a stray curse. Fragrant wine soaked the white tablecloth. For the first time, Voldemort looked angry. "Gentlemen!" he crackled. "Keep it down!"

The Death Eaters laughed, except one blonde girl at the end of the table. Her skin was so white, her hair so fair, she glowed a pale jade color in the torchlight. The girl returned Lily's stare with a mixture of terror and defiance.

Becky Whitetree! She was a Ravenclaw in Lily's year. She was a prefect, for God's sake! She played Chaser! Becky liked to talk about boys, she drank butterbeer. She couldn't be a Death Eater. Lily felt the last of the herbal sedation drain away, driven out by righteous fury.

"Whitetree!" Lily barked. "Get back here!" Becky ducked into an alcove, hiding behind a grotesque black marble satyr.

"My Lord!" cried Rabastan Lestrange. "Potter's woman is free!"

Lily fired an Expulsor curse at the table. Plates of tadfoal and gravy splattered up in the air and came crashing down to the floor. Rabastan threw up a quick Shield Charm but not before a splintered chunk of mahogany hit him in the jaw, knocking out his front teeth.

Clutching her wand, Lily went after Becky Whitetree. "Tell me why, you traitor bitch!"

Becky was crying. She held her hands up in front of her face, her wand dangling between her fingers. "Lily, please! I never wanted to hurt anybody!"

"That's a load of shit, Whitetree! _Exigo veritatem_!"

Becky tried vainly to resist the inexorable pull of Lily's truth spell, but her mouth burst open. "He blackmailed me!" the girl wailed. "My mother worked in the Ministry, he said he'd kill them all! I Imperiused my own mother! God, I want to die!"

"You could have fought back! The Order would have helped you."

Lily never imagined she would see such a look on a once-friendly face. Contempt and condescension twisted Becky's delicate features, mingled with a desperate envy. "The Order!" Becky laughed. "That might have worked for you, Miss Perfection, the Muggle-born princess. Nobody noticed when I was in trouble! Nobody helped me! Our Lord has had me since the minute I turned seventeen. There was never any hope. _Avada kedavra!_ "

Sliding on the stone floor, Lily ducked away just in time. The deadly green bolt crashed into the fireplace, blasting fingernail-sized chunks of marble away from the wall. " _Engorgio!_ " Lily cried, aiming her wand at a stone hurtling toward them.

Becky watched in awe, unable to move as the pebble-turned-boulder ended its lethal trajectory.

Faint and dizzy, Lily stepped around the broken body of her schoolmate. James would have been so proud; he had always criticized her for pulling her punches. With her concentration slipping, Lily missed the Stunning Hex that hit her in the shoulder blade. Her muscles locked and she fell.

When she opened her eyes, the tip of Snape's wand was only inches from her nose. She stared up at him with horror and the Death Eaters laughed.

Severus's acerbic voice hissed in her mind, as clearly as if his lips were at her ear. _Play along. I'm getting us out of here_. Lily was astonished but snapped quickly into the role. "You disobeyed me, woman!"

Lily groaned. "Please, Master! I was only trying to protect you!"

"No excuses, Mudblood whore! _Crucio!_ " Even in such a weakened form, the Cruciatus curse shivered all over Lily's skin like a blistering sunburn. She screamed, once, twice, three times, as if she were cast into a pyre. Severus released her.

Sobbing with a relief she did not have to pretend, Lily clambered to her feet. She wiped her clammy hands on the green satin gown, already streaked with blood, wine, and tadfoal gravy. Tears made deep tracks in the stone dust coating her face.

"You will not disobey me again," Severus snapped aloud, snatching the wand from her fingers.

"No, Master," said Lily, her voice wobbling. "Never! Please, I'll do anything."

 _There are Portkeys on a shelf in a cupboard off the foyer,_ continued his calmer, more measured mental voice. _We passed it on the way in. Just grab a couple, anything you can get hold of._ Stuff one down the front of your dress and come right back.

Lily had to suppress a start of surprise. How in hell was she supposed to get out of the Great Hall and back without making anyone suspicious? And why did she have to stuff the Portkey down her dress?

"Help the house-elves clear up this mess, girl. Now!" Lily jumped toward the table and gathered an armload of china. At knee height, the house-elves were doing the same. The Death Eaters loved to watch them slave away like Muggles. Jolly with drink, Macnair and Rosier fired stinging hexes at the house-elves as they labored under the heavy platters.

Staggering and sliding in her silver slippers, Lily made her way through the Great Hall. In the corridor, Lily saw a door standing partly open and hurried inside. From a waist-high shelf, she palmed a rusty key ring with one hand, and stuffed a child's pink rubber ball down the front of her dress with the other.

Severus's eyes almost betrayed him when she returned. A flash of incredulous relief quickly turned to a look of lustful greed. Severus grabbed her close to him, pressing her chest against his, and raised his wand. His strong hand locked through Lily's and around the key ring. " _Portus immedius!_ " Lily grabbed onto him and they were jerked out of space and time.

 

The corridor was hot and close, redolent of smoke and metal. Filthy tiled walls stretched into darkness, broken only by the feeble glow of faint electric lights. Severus's eyes rolled up in his head. He fell unconscious to the concrete floor.

Lily dropped beside him and pressed her palm to his throat. She felt a pulse, but it was faint, hesitant. Lily felt something warm and sticky on her knees: Severus was bleeding heavily. The curse had sliced the coarse, black wool of his Death Eater robes and gouged into the lighter cloth of his trousers. The wound was deep; Lily thought she could see the ghostly glint of bone. Severus had never said a word about his injury, never stopped fighting for an instant.

A metallic squeal and an overwhelming roar erupted just behind them. Yanking her own wand from Severus's pocket, she spun on her heels, aiming into the darkness. A subway train thundered past. Feeling foolish, Lily realized they were in a London Tube station.

A teenage Muggle wandered by, his blue hair shining in rigid spikes a foot tall. His kohl-rimmed eyes widened briefly at the sight of a red-haired woman in a bloodied, satin evening gown kneeling by an unconscious man in black robes. Lily cast two rapid charms for Disillusionment and Memory. The young Muggle blinked, rubbing his eyes with a tattooed hand. He pulled a tiny liquor bottle from his pocket, drained the contents in one swallow, and threw the bottle to the floor as he slumped toward the platform. The empty bottle bounced off Severus's shoe and came to rest.

Waving her wand with the desperation of an untaught child, Lily chanted every healing spell she knew, but nothing worked. Severus's blood soaked the hem of his trousers. They had to get back to Wales, back to Harry. Lily planned to make a few random Apparitions first, hoping to confuse their trail. She didn't know how in the world to do Side-Along Apparition with Severus unconscious. Lily tried levitating him to waist height. She hoped to God she didn't Splinch them both. Severus would probably bleed to death first, she realized. She didn't know the counter-curse. She only knew what was taught in school and later by the Order.

 _"Ignorance of the Dark Arts only plays into their hands!"_ Professor Slughorn brought on a near-mutiny in seventh-year Potions with his radical claim. James openly derided him, and so at the time had Lily, but Slughorn was right. Tears burned in Lily's eyes as she grasped Severus around the waist, clinging desperately to her memory of the cold Irish shore.

A fox barked in the sand dunes. The moon shone through broken clouds. "Sev, we're back in Ireland again. Near the cottage." Lily pushed stringy black hair back from his forehead. She knew it was stupid to talk to him when he was unconscious, but she found she missed his brusque comments. She missed the sense that he was always thinking ahead, always planning and solving problems. Severus was nothing like James in that way. Comparing James and Severus was pointless. There was nothing impulsive about Severus Snape.

Nine years old and starved for connection, Severus's thin face flashed into Lily's mind. She saw him at eleven, full of optimism and joy. She remembered holding his hand, how fast the pulse beat in his fingers, the first time they saw Hogwarts castle across the lake. She saw him at sixteen, consumed by grief and self-loathing as she turned away from him. ( _Mudblood._ ) She would not let him die. Lily grabbed Severus once more around the waist. Apparition blew the sudden tears from her face.

Her second jump took them to Stonehenge. She had studied it in Ancient Runes, visited with her Muggle primary school class ages ago, but she had never been there at night. Lily stood in the center of the great stone circle, Severus floating quiescent beside her, as if he lay on an invisible altar. Lily stared up at the stars, praying that the nameless power in the stones would shelter them both, as it had their ancestors.

Finally, they were in Wales, on Myra's mountain. If Severus's friends were true and Harry was safe she'd be holding him in minutes. Her heart throbbed at the thought. Lily searched for the single leaf that would open the enchanted hedge. Consumed by her dread of leaving Harry and her terror of facing Voldemort, she hadn't paid enough attention.

Growing more frantic, she snapped off an entire branch. "Help!" Lily cried. She ran to the place where she knew the front door was hidden. Pin pricks of starlight shone straight through the crossed branches. "Help, it's me! It's Harry's mother! Severus is hurt, he's bleeding to death! I can't get in! Help me, please!"

Lily's breath came in short, irregular puffs. She pushed with all her might, trying by force to part the entwined branches. Something pushed back, and she landed on her backside in the pine needles. Her bare arms and legs were scratched and streaked with blood. Lily rolled over on the ground, despairing. Was it all a mirage?

Suddenly, the rowan trees pulled back. A stone step pushed forward inches from Lily's face. The heavy old door opened, warmth and light pouring from within. A slender girl stood in the doorway, bending down to help Lily to her feet and leading her inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Time for poor Lily and Severus to have a break, don't you think?
> 
> This chapter is where we start to earn our M rating, in my opinion. I've tried not to go too far beyond the books in terms of violence, innuendo, etc. but there are some allusions to (magical / drugged) non-con beginning in this chapter. I can add a warning if anyone feels it's needed.


	10. Morsmordre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lily and James are laid to rest. Sirius makes an astounding discovery.

November frost coated the grassy lawns and hedges of Godric's Hollow. A few chilly rays of sunlight shone on the front steps of the parish church. The war memorial in the town square cast a long shadow across the cobbled street.

Sirius made a mental note never to drink with Hagrid again. Sirius was lucky he could sleep off his excesses in canine form; the worst of the aftereffects boiled off in the Animagus transformation. He felt well except for a lingering dry mouth and a vague odor of spilled beer mingled with wet dog. James was always threatening to write up their discovery under an assumed name and send it in to _Transfiguration Today_ , but Remus would never let him.

Sirius never imagined he would bury James and Lily alone. He was afraid for Peter; nobody had heard from him in days. Sirius hoped his owl had reached Remus in time.

Going through this day without Moony and Wormtail was just wrong. Remus was teaching English somewhere on the Continent. He left each situation as soon as he was exposed as a werewolf, crossing to the opposite side of Europe to begin again. It was lucky that Moony was such a nerd for languages: for everything, really. It was rather difficult keeping in touch with him. At the wrong time of the month, Moony was more likely to eat the owl than reply to a message. Sirius's barking laughter cut sharply into the freezing air.

A squat fair-haired man rushed up the church steps. His black velvet robes strained around his chest with each breath. "Professor Dumbledore!"

"Mr. Merrill!" Dumbledore summoned Sirius to help him as the man began to hyperventilate. Sirius and Dumbledore hurried forward to support him at each elbow. "Miss Pomfrey, please fix a calming draught for our friend the undertaker." The healer fumbled in her potions purse and retrieved a tiny crystal vial which she uncorked and poured straight into Merrill's mouth.

Dumbledore had probably told Miss Pomfrey to bring the tranquilizers for Sirius in case he lost it at the funeral, but he felt unnaturally calm. A palpable barrier stood between Sirius and the scene before him as if it were all taking place on a Muggle television screen, flickering in black and white.

Gilbert Merrill thanked Miss Pomfrey with a hazy, diluted smile. "Professor, I need you in the mortuary."

"What is it?" Sirius asked, stepping closer. Dumbledore laid a warning hand on his elbow. "I have to know."

"Mr. Black, please accompany us." The undertaker glanced fearfully at Sirius as if he had just recognized a family resemblance to so many Wanted posters.

"No, Headmaster, sir! I wouldn't advise that!" Sirius favored the fat little man with a sardonic smile. "Sirius Black is godfather to the Potters' missing son," said Dumbledore in his most comforting tone of voice. Mr. Merrill made a frightened noise like the mew of a newborn kitten. "I assure you, good Sir, I trust him completely."

Reluctantly, Mr. Merrill led them down the broad limestone steps. He turned down a long cobbled alleyway, coming at last to the rear door of the mortuary. The little house seemed so cozy with its white clapboard siding and black shutters, Sirius had a hard time imagining it as a place of grief and suffering.

"I don't know how it could have happened," Mr. Merrill unlocked the back door with his wand. They passed into a hallway fragrant with lavender-scented candles and rust-colored autumn flowers. Sirius sneezed. "It gave me such a fright, Headmaster, I can barely explain it. I used all the usual charms plus the extras you suggested, considering the deceased were known to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."

"Did you observe anything unusual last night, my good man?" inquired Dumbledore.

"I didn't hear anything all night long, Professor. All the charms were intact at nine o'clock this morning, I checked them myself. Mrs. Merrill and I were just getting ready to transport the deceased to the church... well, you'd best see for yourself, sir."

The old man paused just inside the doorway and froze with astonishment.

Sirius rushed past him. "Wormtail!" Pale and waxy in death, Peter Pettigrew lay in Lily's place. "What the hell are you doing here?" Clutching the enameled white rim of the coffin, Sirius stared in horror at Pettigrew's black robes. Sirius clenched his fingers to keep them from grabbing onto the corpse and beating the truth out of it.

Shaking, Dumbledore steadied himself against the foot of the coffin. Remembering himself, Gilbert Merrill summoned two sturdy white chairs and set them near the caskets. Dumbledore sank down slowly. "Mr. Merrill, my friend and I will need a few moments alone with the deceased." Merrill backed out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Dumbledore lifted his wand, casting a rapid spell for privacy. "Peter was a Gryffindor! He couldn't have turned! Did you send him undercover? Was he working for the Order?" Sirius demanded.

"Sirius, look at his garments. Look at his arm." Reaching into the casket, Dumbledore lifted the sleeve of Peter's black robe. A livid, blackened serpent and skull rose from the colorless skin. The Dark Mark was a fresh branding, still scabbed over in places. In death the wound would never heal.

Sirius stumbled backward and fell into a chair. James was dead and it was his fault. Blaming it on Snape was second nature; blaming it on Voldemort was even easier. Sirius had killed his best friend as surely as if he had wielded the wand himself. Sirius scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand, snuffling loudly.

Dumbledore sat gingerly beside Sirius. "You mustn't blame yourself."

Sirius got up, roughly dislodging Dumbledore's hand from his shoulder. "Why the hell not?" Sirius stared into the coffins, at the beloved face of his best friend and then at the dead traitor whom he had trusted and protected for so many years. "I was the one who switched Secret-Keepers! Wormtail talked me into it. It should have been me!"

Dumbledore didn't even hear him. "Severus, my boy," he murmured, "Please forgive me for doubting you."

Sirius was belligerent. "Why bring Snivellus into this? He killed Lily, remember?" Even in the presence of James's still body, a bubble of insane hope rose in Sirius's heart. He felt dizzy with the possibility. Sirius stared at Dumbledore. The Headmaster smiled through his own tears. "Professor, are you telling me that Snape killed Peter? Do you really think Lily could be alive?"

"Transubstantis morbialis is one of the most powerful illusions in the arsenal of darkness. Historically, it is used to Transfigure the dead into the semblance of another being. It could be a human or an animal form." Dumbledore walked around the end of the coffin and cast a critical eye on Pettigrew's corpse. He reached his wand cautiously into the coffin and prodded the dead body. "Cast by an ordinary wizard, it's a transitory effect: a glamour, if you will. I've never seen this spell cast with such force. I had no idea it could be extended for more than twenty-four hours."

True to form, thought Sirius, Dumbledore hadn't actually answered his question. It was just like the old man to turn into a walking textbook when Sirius only wanted a straight answer. "Sir, what do you mean?"

Dumbledore settled his pointed hat on his incandescent white hair. "For good or ill, Lily and Severus are almost certainly together. And wherever they may be, I wager that little Harry Potter is safe in his mother's arms. Come, my friend. We have a bit of Obliviating to do."

Sirius hung back, standing by the open caskets. He didn't even look at Wormtail. That betrayal ran too deep to comprehend so quickly. Dead, Peter Pettigrew was extremely fortunate to be beyond Sirius's revenge.

Sirius reached down one last time to touch the back of James's hand. Gilbert Merrill was a bumbling horse's arse but he was good at his job. James looked as if he could wake at any moment and laugh in Sirius's face.

_You actually believed I was dead?_ James hooted. _Merlin, but you are a gullible sack of dragon dung. C'mon, let's get out of here._

Sirius said a silent good-bye to his best friend, to the fantasy world that had risen suddenly in his heart, where James reached for his hand and Sirius helped him out of the coffin. They walked laughing away from reality to a cozy stone cottage just a few hundred meters from the village. Lily would be making Irish stew for lunch and Harry dreaming baby dreams in his cot upstairs. Lily would yell at them for tracking mud into the house. James would Vanish the mess with his wand and swat Lily on the bum. The two of them would bicker until one of them woke the baby and Sirius brought him downstairs.

"James, I'll take care of Lily and Harry, I promise. I'll find them and bring them home."

Dumbledore lifted his wand and made a subtle gesture. Both coffin lids lowered slowly, locking away their secrets with an impenetrable charm.

The service had to be stalled for about fifteen minutes while Sirius and the Headmaster dealt with the Merrills. Smiling vaguely, the undertaker and his wife directed the mourners into the sanctuary. Alastor Moody stood guard, rolling his crazy eye and flexing a gleaming Probity Probe at everyone who entered the church. The mourners were giving the Auror an even wider berth than usual -- nobody wanted to be at the business end of that instrument of justice.

Moody only scowled at Sirius as he slunk into a wooden pew near the back of the church. Sirius slunk down in his seat, hoping to escape notice. His plan didn't last long. Dora Tonks sidled up to him. What was she doing here? His cousin was only eight years old: too young for all this. Sirius cast a furious look at her parents over Dora's bent head, but Ted and Andromeda were some distance down on the pew, deep in conversation.

Dora's little hand wormed into his. When their fingers touched, Dora's mousy-brown braids unravelled and shrank back into her head. Navy-blue hair ribbons untied themselves in mid-air and fluttered down to the polished wooden pew. Dora's hair turned sooty black and fell into a disorder as artful as James's own.

Sirius gawped at her. Dora looked alarmed. The black color leached quickly from her hair. "No, it's okay. James would have loved that." Dora wiggled closer to him and Sirius tucked an arm around her. Down the polished pew, Andromeda smiled at him. Sirius shrugged.

Across the sanctuary, Hagrid sobbed into his hairy orange sleeve. Dorcas Meadowes, an elfin figure beside their hulking friend, pulled a placemat-sized handkerchief out of her bag. The gamekeeper blew his nose with the sound of a steamship's horn.

Little Neville Longbottom fussed in his father's arms. The baby looked fearfully around the room with his customary bug-eyed expression. Neville squirmed to be handed back to his mother, but Alice was sobbing unrestrained on Augusta Longbottom's shoulder.

Alice's twin cousins, the red-headed Prewett brothers, roamed the aisle near Sirius. The Aurors argued in loud whispers: Sirius heard Arthur Weasley's name spoken with some heat and looked around with curiosity. The Weasley clan were conspicuous by their absence. Rumor had it that an anxious Molly had pleaded with Arthur not to attend the funeral.

Sirius could hardly blame Molly Weasley for a case of nerves: both of her brothers were in the Order and the Dark Mark was cast over her own village, over a house full of defenseless kids and a tiny baby.

Molly's brothers were less forgiving. "Better a dead blood traitor than a weasel down a hole!" thundered Gideon. Fabian shushed him furiously.

_Blood traitors, Mudbloods, and filth,_ thought Sirius. He felt a quick, grateful smile come to his face and squashed it before Dora could see. Lily and Harry were alive and he would find them.

Midway through the service, the tall wooden doors at the back of the church creaked open. A slender figure entered, dressed in a Muggle coat. She moved as if every step caused her pain. Her fur-trimmed hood slipped down and she drew it up and over her stiff blonde curls.

At the podium, Dumbledore spoke Lily's name. The woman choked and pulled herself upright, stumbling back into the cold. After a few minutes a motor car started, its cold engine banging to life. The sound dimmed gradually as the car drove out of Godric's Hollow.


	11. Incendio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lily recovers and learns more about Severus's teacher.

Within the spelled rowan hedge lay Myra Spring's cottage, neat and snug in the chilly autumn air. Lily was surprised at how much she could see from the leaded-glass windows. A hare nibbled desultorily at some withered berries and then hopped away unconcerned.

Lily could see where she had fallen by the front steps the night before. The marks of her struggle traced through the deep carpet of pine needles. "Shall I go out and sweep the front walk?"

Myra Spring darted around the old-fashioned kitchen preparing a willow-bark infusion. "You shouldn't be doing anything except resting up, dear. You're my guest." She grated the bark with a sharp knife, dropping the curls one by one into steaming water. Small and grey, she reminded Lily of a nuthatch.

"I'm worried someone will come along and see the footprints."

"We have Muggle hunters up here often enough. They'll come up and cover the tracks for us. You'll see." Myra placed the cup by Lily's hand. "Don't drink it right away. Let it steep. I'll tell you when it's ready. In the meantime," she said, "Have a drink of water and some toast. My own homemade sourdough."

Lily nodded her thanks. She spread a piece of toast with apple butter and took a bite. After the horrors of Castle Lestrange, plain food, honestly served, filled more than her stomach. "How long have you lived up here?"

"Forty-five years, dear. This was my teacher's house once. I didn't go to Hogwarts. Don't look so shocked, child, not everybody needs to. Didn't send my daughter, either. Said she didn't want to go." Myra stirred a bubbling pot at the back of the stove and replaced the cast-iron lid. "I came here instead. I learned how to grow anything, how to find the wildest plants in every corner of the wood... to make them strong, to help them grow." The older woman touched an aloe plant on the windowsill. The plant twined its leaves around her fingers in a verdant caress. Lily stared at her. "These desert plants were my teacher's darlings. I found them dense and difficult so I went to America. I studied cactus first and then the other succulents. I went on to the giant redwoods in California. Hard to leave there. Marvelous place."

"Do you take students often?"

"Not anymore. Severus was my first since I had Melora." Myra tipped her head to one side and smiled. "He's quite a good potioneer, but I like to think I made an herbalist out of him. Hard to get him to buckle down. Always wanting to boil and pickle, not so much weed and water."

"Thank you for last night. You saved all of our lives."

"We were up very late with that young man of yours, Melora and I. He led us quite a chase; I almost thought he wanted to die. He seemed very intent on it at the time."

Lily wanted to object to Myra's casual assignment. A door opened and Melora brought Harry out of the smallest bedroom. The pretty teenager wore her strawberry-blonde hair in a long braid. Harry tugged at it with one hand as he waved to his mother. Lily waved back.

"Mum, I'm taking Harry outdoors to play. He needs some fresh air."

"Wrap him up warm," Myra cautioned. Melora rolled her eyes and brandished a child-sized jumper with purple and olive stripes. The heavy oak door closed behind them. Lily could just make out Harry's happy laughter as he ran around the garden.

Myra settled in the hand-hewn chair across the table and generously smeared her own toast with apple butter. "If you're ever at loose ends, my dear, I recommend playing the wood nymph." Myra's blue eyes took on a dreamy cast. "I made a Muggle gentleman in Scotland quite happy. I do wonder whatever happened to him... Melora's father, that is."

Lily choked on a piece of toast but managed to rinse it down with cold mountain water.

Myra continued. "Melora's a half-blood but she doesn't know it. It doesn't matter a bit. Severus was always so ashamed of his Muggle father. Can't say I blame the poor boy. From what I've heard, Tobias Snape was a cruel man. Go ahead, dear, drink that tea. I dare say it's ready."

Lily nodded over her steaming mug and took a cautious sip. The bark tasted soapy and reminded her of her mum washing her mouth out when she said a naughty word.

"I've never had the Cruciatus curse put on me before... Severus was as gentle as he could possibly have been but it hurts." Lily trembled. "He Stunned me first -- I thought he'd turned on me."

"Do you feel like you have a sunburn?" Lily nodded. Myra turned a clinical squint on the back of her hand. "I'll get you some aloe juice to use in your bath." Myra levered her plump body out of the chair and took a green pottery flask from a high cupboard. "Tell me all about little Harry."

Lily relaxed a bit. "He's such a funny thing. So smart and always up to something. James's best friend gave him a little broomstick for his first birthday -- the kind that fly at about ankle height. He nearly broke a window!" Lily's laughter mingled freely with tears. The line between joy and sorrow wavered like sand brushed back and forth by lapping waves. She wiped her nose on a handkerchief and stared out the diamond-paned kitchen window, watching Harry explore the russet garden. Melora followed him, attentive and indulgent.

"How is Severus?"

"We've kept him asleep; he's comfortable for now. I believe we healed the cursed wounds. You performed quite a feat last night, getting away from You-Know-Who and managing to get poor Severus back here in one piece."

"I almost Splinched the both of us coming out of the Tube station."

"The Tube station?" Myra chuckled.

"Severus told me where the Portkeys were kept at the castle. That's how we escaped. I've still got one. Oh my God!" Lily squeaked. "I'd better hide that ball before Harry plays with it and sends himself heaven knows where!" She leapt up from the table and all of her muscles screamed in protest.

Myra caught her by the arms. Dizzy once more with pain, Lily slumped back into her chair.

"Sit down! I'll take care of the rogue Portkey, wherever it is."

"Probably right there on the table by the door."

"Yes, you're right. Amazing how mothers develop the ability to catalog the location of every bit and bob in the house.  It's enough to make you lose your memory for everything else." Myra tucked the rubber ball into a high cabinet and made a great show of locking the door. "There. If the thing goes off, it'll just disappear?"

"Nobody can trace a Portkey. At least, I don't think so... nobody can officially trace a Portkey. Since this one belonged to the Lestranges, I doubt it's in any Ministry records. Do you think we should destroy it?"

"Best wait for our friend to awaken. You know Severus. It's likely he has an excessively clever plan in mind." Myra refilled Lily's cup. "There, dear. That's all the willow bark infusion I can give you today. Any more, and you might have loose stools."

Lily gulped her tea too quickly and burned her tongue. She should have remembered that from Herbology and Potions. They were tested frequently on the side effects of their preparations; Professor Sprout was particularly conscientious.

"Why don't we fill the bathtub before Melora brings the baby inside?" Lily cast another anxious glance toward the window. "Come, now. Melora's as steady as -- what's that wonderful book about the baby-sitting witch? Flies with an umbrella?"

Lily followed Myra into the bathroom where an old copper claw-footed tub stood empty and shining. "Mary Poppins. I wouldn't think you'd know that many Muggle stories."

Myra lifted the heavy kettle as if it were weightless and poured the steaming water into the tub. "What else is there to do in the winter evenings if you haven't got a wireless? The Muggle branch library is right down in the village at the foot of the mountain. I read to Melora for an hour every day when she was a little girl. You do run out of Wizarding children's books quite rapidly... there just aren't as many choices. Little witches don't read as much as Muggle girls, have you noticed that?"

"The only other magical child I knew was Severus." Lily began loosening the cuffs and placket of the long, flower-sprigged shirt dress she had borrowed from Melora. Myra brought yet another kettle of steaming water from the kitchen. "Why not just multiply the water or heat it after it's in the tub?"

"Severus didn't tell you? Well, I suppose he'd hardly have had the chance. We don't use magic for everyday things, only to serve our calling or to save a life. Melora argues with me all the time but she's beginning to see reason.

"The more one uses it for mundane things, magic is diluted. Physical skills go atrophied. Witch, wizard, or Muggle, the human body is magic in itself. All our power comes from the same source, whether it's channeled through a wand or through my muscles, like so."

Myra lifted the heavy kettle once more. Steam swirled around her face, plunging her into obscurity. Lily stared after the woods witch, seeing her for the first time as an outsider.

"Why do you believe that?"

"Magic is like the honeybee's sting. It is a gift from Mother Earth, Lily, but it comes at a dear price. Never forget, when the bee stings, she dies."

"So when Severus lived with you..."

"Lord, yes. Magic is for growing plants and herbs, for making potions, for healing spells. It is not for scrubbing the loo." Lily couldn't help laughing. "Some wizards do get uppity. They say that manual labor puts them on a level with Muggles, but I think you understand, dear. There's only one level for us all."

Lily agreed. Having magic didn't make you any better or any happier than Muggles; it merely gave you a different set of tools. What difference did it make whether you used a Scouring Spell or an automatic dishwasher? There was no moral high ground; the dishes were clean and that was what mattered. Lily knew that James had never understood that. Neither did Severus.

"This bathtub is as full as it can be. Pour in that aloe juice. We'll give it a stir." Lily uncorked the flask and used a wooden paddle to swirl the water around. "Enjoy yourself, dear, and call me if you have any trouble. Your body has been through a lot."

Lily waited until Myra closed the bathroom door. She hung the dress carefully on a leaf-shaped hook behind the door. She dipped one toe into the water and found the temperature just right. The aloe juice made a soft oily sheen on the surface. Lily sank fully into the bath. She hadn't washed since Halloween morning at home. Later, she would have to give Harry a good soak and a scrub. Even his hair was beginning to stink. What a sweet relief it was to be with Harry again.

Lily relaxed in the tub as long as she could. She imagined the year Severus had spent in this house: angry and alone, he poured his heart out to Myra Spring.

Just before Easter of their final year at Hogwarts, Severus's mum had died of liver failure. They were studying for examinations when the word came. Lily remembered cornering Severus in the library and trying (even though she knew he loathed her) to give him some kind of comfort. His cold stare drove her away. Hatred she could have understood; jealousy she expected. The boy she once knew so well seemed emptied from within, hollowed out.

Lily rested her temple against the cold copper rim of the tub. Her auburn hair trailed, serpentine, into the water. Tears welled up again and she let them flow.

Myra knocked urgently at the bathroom door. "Lily? He's awake. He's asking for you." Lily tugged at the old-fashioned chain. The bath water swirled slowly downward. She scrubbed herself dry with a scratchy towel and tossed it onto the floor. Hurrying, she missed half the buttons on the dress. She was still buttoning as she rushed into the largest bedroom.

Severus lay diagonally across the small bed, too tall to lay straight. Half-delirious, his fevered gaze shone far brighter than usual. A steaming mug sat on the bedside table. Lily knelt beside him, taking his large white hand in both of hers.

"Thank God," she whispered.

"There's an entity you don't hear a witch speak of very often."

Lily smiled. "I can't believe you're alive."

His fingers twitched in her hand, no more than a flutter. "Where are we?"

"Myra's house in Wales."

"And the boy?"

"Outside playing with Melora. Her new favorite toy, apparently." Severus's involuntary laugh turned into a choke. Lily helped him reach the mug at his bedside. His lips curled with distaste as he swallowed.

"This must be Myra's house. No one else brews such offensive infusions."

"Shut up, Severus, and be grateful you're alive." Myra entered carrying a blue-glazed bowl and a face cloth. "Your leg is a ruddy mess. How many times did they use the Cruciatus curse on you?"

Severus raised his hazy stare to Lily's face, beseeching. She spoke up. "He's tired. We should go."

Myra set the blue bowl on a three-legged milking stool and placed the face cloth in Lily's hand. "He'll rest easier if you bathe his forehead." Lily sniffed at the bowl. Myra smiled, enigmatic. "It's just water. I'll be back."

Gingerly, Lily wet the cloth. The squeezing motion burned the back of her hand, pulling the sensitive skin taut over her knuckles.

"I hurt you," said Severus quietly. The face cloth touched his forehead, cool and damp like a dew-covered leaf.

"It's all right. Better you than them."

"It's not. I never wanted to hurt you." Lily rinsed the cloth and squeezed it out once more.

"It was a good idea, though. It let us get away."

"I should never have done it. All I heard in my dreams was your voice... screaming." His voice rose and his breathing came harder. Lily lay her hand at the base of his throat; the quick pulse hammered against her fingers.

"Calm down," she said with alarm. "I'm going to have Myra sedate you again." Lily started to rise to call for the woods witch, but Severus's hand clasped hers more tightly than she thought possible.

"Let go of me!"

"Forgive me."

"Of course I forgive you, now let me go!" Severus abruptly released her. Lily stumbled, bumping into the milking stool. Water sloshed all over the floor. Lily moved to mop up the spill. With the grinding ache in her legs and back, she couldn't bend down far enough. "Myra," she called thinly. "Help!"

"I shouldn't have let you do so much. Go and lie down, Lily. The walking wounded are the worst patients," Myra clucked. "Severus, don't be a menace. She saved your life."

Lily tried to speak to him, but Severus turned away from the open door and closed his eyes. Lily could only touch the back of his hand before she went to her own rest.

 

As Lily left the room, the memory of her feather-light touch made Severus burn with more than a fever. Better to have died to save her than to endure such suffering. Separated from her by the memory of that ignorant braggart Potter and by the existence of the child, his little duplicate. Even Dumbledore had not been so cruel. Severus gulped the draught too quickly and fell into sleep once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the kudos, comments, and bookmarks. Hope you are enjoying the story. This revision has not been beta-read, so if you spot any errors I'd be grateful to hear about them.
> 
> Added: I've fixed a number of paragraph break errors. This chapter should make more sense now. No more posting while half-asleep, hehe.
> 
> Myra Spring was inspired by Tebreega from Geraldine Harris' YA fantasy series, _The Seven Citadels_. This series is out of print, but if you can find it in your local library it's an enjoyable read.


	12. Revelio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the Potters' funeral, Sirius and his companions search for answers at Hogwarts.

Flushed and breathing hard, Dorcas Meadowes made her way down the curving road from Hogwarts. She paused outside the Hog's Head to catch her breath. By the door stood a disapproving Minerva McGonagall, Dorcas's old friend and rival. The Head of Gryffindor ran her wand lightly over each entrant and spoke a simple charm to detect ill intent. Minerva nodded and waved Dorcas into the crowd.

As the weak November sun sank behind the mountains and the firewhisky flowed, the crowd grew voluble. Shouts and songs leaked from the heavy stone walls. Witches and wizards clustered together in small groups; most wore the same formal robes they had donned for the morning funeral service. Hogwarts professors mingled freely with Order folk. Only a few of the Potters' classmates clustered near the door, whispering among themselves. Attending James and Lily's funeral was an open declaration against Voldemort and not many had dared to appear.

Papery chrysanthemums stood on the sideboard. Framed Muggle photographs stood between the tarnished vases. Death masks, James and Lily's young faces stared into the smoky room. Dorcas crossed herself: a still portrait seemed far more haunted to a wizard's eye.

Standing a yard taller than anyone nearby, Hagrid was easy to locate. Hovering at his massive elbow, Dorcas shouted up to him, but the florid man was deep in conversation with the barman, Aberforth Dumbledore.

 _"The last enemy that shall be defeated is death._ What in 'ell would yeh put that on a tombstone for? Considerin' poor Harry's feelings, when he looks at that an' knows his mum an' dad are buried under there?" Hagrid's chin tossed back an entire tankard of mead in one swallow.

With bruised dignity and dissipating patience, Dorcas pressed her wand to Hagrid's thigh and delivered a stinging shock.

"Aberforth! Yeh said yeh were puttin' the goats out!" he complained. Stooping down to massage the sore spot, he came face to face with Dorcas.

"Where's Sirius? I found something at Hogwarts."

"Somethin' about..."

"Yes! Now, be quiet!"

Dorcas stopped to have a quick word with her colleagues, the Prewett brothers. "Saw Black heading into the woods a while ago," said Fabian. "Kind of walking crooked, if you get our meaning. Not that I blame him... rough day."

A fresh stream of invective issued from Dorcas's mouth. Hagrid was taken aback. "What's gotten inter yeh? Didn't know you knew half o'them words."

"I was up at Hogwarts trying to get into Snape's quarters. Albus gave me permission; I thought I might find something useful there. Then, that execrable scrap of..."

Sirius stood grinning at Dorcas's side. "What did I do this time?"

"There you are!" Dorcas grabbed the collar of Sirius's robe. She sniffed the air around his face but he seemed none the worse for wear. Pushing Sirius out the door, she turned in the direction of the castle and gave him a shove up the cobbled lane. Bemused, Hagrid trailed along behind them.

The weight of his secret dragged at Sirius's heart. He couldn't tell Dorcas that all her hard work was for nothing. Harry and Lily were alive: Severus Snape, of all people, had rescued them. Sirius would never forget the sight of the Dark Mark emblazoned on the dead flesh of Peter's arm. Dumbledore had of course sworn him to secrecy, but Sirius was trying to figure out a way around that. He had come to rely on his unlikely companions.

At the main gate of Hogwarts, Argus Filch barred their way. The caretaker brandished a string mop at Dorcas. His ugly tabby cat sniffed at Sirius's ankles and meowed up at her owner; Sirius wondered whether the mangy creature could smell Padfoot on his clothes.

"Sirius Black?! I don't want _him_ in here! Seems like I just finished repairing all the damage they left behind! Him and those rotten friends of his!" Mortified, Sirius tried his best to look cool. It didn't help at all that Hagrid couldn't wipe the stupid grin off his face.

"Listen, Filch," said Dorcas, pale blue eyes glittering with irritation. "You will permit Mr. Black to enter this castle on Professor Dumbledore's orders."

The cat raised her hackles and Filch stood his ground. "Who're you to go 'round givin' out the Headmaster's orders? You might be a big fancy Auror, but you haven't got a lick o' power inside this castle. I'll ship you outta here faster 'n Mrs. Norris can gut a rat."

With the air of a gambler playing a trump card, Dorcas unfolded a note that spoke in Dumbledore's soothing baritone. The square of parchment dissolved in a soft shimmer of violet sparkles, releasing a peppermint aroma. Sirius had to smile. Professor Dumbledore might be maddening to work with, but the old man had style.

Filch stood aside and stroked his hideous cat as Dorcas led them through the double doors of the Great Hall. The stare he leveled at Sirius could have melted stone.

The trio passed down the first staircase into the dungeons, going deeper and deeper beneath the castle. They took a sharp right turn and went down yet another staircase, the stone steps slippery with condensation. They emerged in the torch-lit corridor leading to the Potions classrooms.

"What are we doing down here, Dorcas?" Hagrid let out a sudden yelp and jumped to the side, a nimble move for someone the size of a young giraffe. A ball of toad slime splattered by his feet.

 _"Here comes little Black-y,_  
Doggy, stinky lackey,  
Why have you been cry-ing?  
Potty's been a dy-ing?"

Together, the three friends gaped at the ceiling. Peeves the poltergeist waggled his transparent bottom high over their heads. In the flickering light, they could just make out that the spectral being was dressed formally in top hat and tails. Fat balls of toad slime spun in the air, making a rhythmic counterpart to his song.

 _"Ugly, rotten Snapey,_  
Gone and done a breaky,  
Wears a silver mask-y,  
Tisky-tisky-tasky.

"Never liked that rotter,  
Gonna miss old Potter,  
Listen to this story,  
Hope it ain't too gory!"

"Peeves! Been a while, hasn't it?" Sirius was surprised at how glad he was to see the plump little apparition hovering overhead. The specter doffed his hat with a sucking noise like pulling a rubber boot out of the mud. "That was a great song, really, but can you please just tell us what you want us to know? We're kind of in a hurry."

In midair, Peeves twisted his coattails in his pudgy hands. "If I tell you, the Bloody Baron will spin me into candy floss and toss me into the lake to make a treat for the giant squid!"

"Honestly, Peeves! Can't you just be helpful for once?" For her impatience, Dorcas received a slime ball square on the forehead. She batted furiously at the disgusting stuff dripping behind her glasses.

"Not so fast, bad-wizard-catcher-lady," Peeves cackled, poking Dorcas's lapel, where she wore an yellow, enameled pin in the shape of a badger. "Remember you from school! Remember stealing your itty witty spectacles! Remember flushing them down the toilet, loads of fun!" Hagrid hid a grin behind his oversized hand.

"Peeves, please." Sirius looked up at the agitated spirit with a kind of pity. In his own strange way, Peeves had been attached to James. Very few students had ever come close to Peeves's cherished precepts of chaos and tomfoolery.

"Professor Snape is a bad wizard," Peeves said at last. "Not in a good way. Not tricksy and fun like Peevsie: a really, really, bad wizard."

"That's a strong accusation." Dorcas frowned. "Are you saying he's a Death Eater?"

Peeves ignored Dorcas's question. The poltergeist floated closer to Sirius's face. Sirius drew back slowly so as not to offend. Even if Peeves liked you, being that close to him was generally regarded as a bad idea. Besides, his breath was horrible.

"Couple nights before Snapey split, he was up yelling at somebody till late, late into the night. Peeves hears everything, he fits through all the keyholes. Snapey says terrible things. Says he'll skewer his eyeballs and serve them to You-Know-Who. He says he'll give him to the Dark Lord for an umbrella stand. Nasty, nasty man!"

"Who was he talking to?"

"The ratty, the fatty. Don't be stupid, dog breath! You know him!"

Hagrid gasped. "Peter Pettigrew!"

Suddenly Sirius found himself drenched in several quarts of something hot and acidic. "Ugh!"

Overhead, Peeves was swinging an empty pail. "Nothing to see here, Bloody Baron, sir! Peeves just happened to find this poor fellow all messy, messy! Too bad, too bad!"

Dignified and menacing, the Slytherin ghost raised a glimmering arm. The stains of his mysterious crime shone silver on his chest. Sirius could hear Peeves whining and cajoling as the apparitions departed. He wiped disgustedly at the fresh vomit on his head and robes.

Hagrid guffawed and pulled a dirty tea towel from his coat pocket. "I'd say yer lookin' seriously Peeved, my friend." Seething, Sirius mopped at his robes with Hagrid's towel.

Dorcas's mood had markedly improved. "Hagrid, you wouldn't have another one of those towels?" Hagrid shook the remains of a sticky bun from a crumpled napkin, handing the napkin to Dorcas. " _Scourgify!_ " Hot water and soap bubbled from the end of her wand. Hagrid held his palm out, and Dorcas squirted it as well.

"I don't understand," said Hagrid, rubbing vigorously at the smelly stuff coating his hands. "Why would Pettigrew be mixed up with Professor Snape?"

Sirius rubbed his forehead with the towel. "He was probably trying to find out where James and Lily were hiding."

"Poor Peter," Hagrid moaned. "He wouldn'a stood a chance."

Dorcas sat down on a cracked stone bench. On the canvas behind her, it was raining. A shabby old wizard huddled under a tri-cornered hat and cloak. Raising a hooded lanthorn, the portrait leered with a toothless smile. "How d'you do, m'lady?"

Without turning around, Dorcas flicked her wand in the air. Sirius was startled by a palpable shock wave. The entire dungeon rumbled at once, vibrating on an extremely low frequency. All the painted figures fled from their frames. The gargoyle mounted closest to the Potions classroom plugged its stony ears and howled. "I should have done that a long time ago. Portraits are dreadful gossips, and they're not all on our side."

Hagrid was impressed. "You do have some fancy tricks, you Aurors."

"It's really a pity that poltergeist testimony isn't admissible in court. We need more credible evidence." Dorcas got up and straightened the cuffs of her robes. "Let's get what we came for."

"Snape's quarters?"

"Come on, Sirius. The entrance is through the back of the Potions storeroom. Hagrid, you'll stand watch."

"What for?"

"This part of the castle doesn't always follow the rules. It's thick with Dark magic."

"Our 'Ogwarts?" Hagrid chuffed.

"Both good and evil learned their ways here. If Professor Snape has anything to hide, I expect he's laid in some defenses." Dorcas held her wand raised at shoulder height. Sirius followed, leaving a worried Hagrid outside the vaulted door.

The Potions classroom glowed faintly, lit only by the phosphorescence of specimen jars. Sirius remembered his own struggles in this room: grinding away at beetle wings, popping squids' eyes. "I hate this place. I got by okay but only because Remus helped me. Lily was way better than him, she could brew anything on the first try."

Dorcas turned her head, smiling sadly. "Albus told me. He said the only one in your year who could match her was Professor Snape."

Snivellus and Lily: the very idea made Sirius sick. Double agent or not, the giant pimple didn't deserve to be in the same universe as Lily and Harry. Snape had better hope that James wasn't haunting around somewhere. If there were any way a ghost could rip a living man limb from limb, James Potter would figure it out. Behind Dorcas, Sirius bared his teeth in a canine grin.

The door was back behind the classroom store cabinet. Dorcas gave her wand a twirling flourish. " _Alohomora!_ " The wardrobe swung obligingly forward. Lighting their wands, Dorcas and Sirius made their way up a tightly wound spiral staircase.

Dorcas used Dumbledore's clearance spell to open the door at the top of the stairs. Snape's quarters were neat and austere, a monk's cell.

Sirius flicked back the pale green curtains covering the wardrobe. A spartan collection of work robes hung alongside black trousers and old-fashioned white shirts, the kind with ties at the collar and cuffs instead of buttons. "It doesn't look like he's taken much with him."

"Look, Sirius." A battered school trunk stood under a green and silver stained-glass window. On the side, a childish hand had written: S. Snape, Hogwarts School. Dorcas couldn't open it.

"Some override spell, huh?" Sirius suppressed a smile at Dorcas's furious expression and shuffled through a neat stack of scrolls on the work table. On top of the pile lay reams of Potions homework, heavily marked with Snape's cutting comments. Underneath, Sirius found old copies of _Transfiguration Today_ and the _Practical Potioneer_. Sirius chuckled at the cover of the latter. An ink-and-pen portrait of Snape brooded over a cauldron. "Maybe he was sort of good at his job."

"As a teacher, I suppose, he has little patience for slow students. Still, Albus says Snape's students have done better than Slughorn's overall."

Sirius laughed. The sharp sound echoed throughout the high-ceilinged room. "That's because old Sluggy was hung over the entire time." Dorcas cast a token look of disapproval over her cat-eye spectacles. Sirius grinned back.

"Oh, Sirius, look." From a drawer beside the bed, Dorcas drew out a thin, leather-bound photograph album, its covers worn by years of handling. A Muggle color photograph was affixed to the first page. The snap had faded to shades of red and brown. A skinny, hawk-nosed little boy with a bruised cheek stood beside a redheaded girl in a flowered blouse. Both squinted into the sun in the manner of kids lined up and forced to smile for the camera. The picture was torn on one side. Another freckled arm showed along the edge of the paper.

"I wonder if that's Petunia Dursley," Dorcas mused. "The poor thing. Losing a loved one is ever so much harder when there's been an estrangement."

A Quidditch team picture lay half-hidden under a tall stack of papers. Sirius pulled the photo out carefully. An ugly tow-headed boy stood in his brother Regulus's place as Seeker. "Since when did Snape get into Quidditch?" he asked hoarsely.

Dorcas smiled. "I suppose he's had to pick up some appreciation for the game by now. He's been head of Slytherin for two years. Professor McGonagall had to give him a crash course on the scoring and rules."

Sirius chuckled. "Please tell me that involved broom work."

"You'd be surprised. Minerva was a star Keeper."

"I never knew that about her." Sirius pulled open the top drawer of a plain, pine-fronted dresser, finding a jumble of underpants. "Ugh. Hasn't he ever heard of a whitening charm?" The next drawer wouldn't budge. Sirius poked at it. " _Specialis revelio!_ " A stinging shock coursed from the affronted furniture. Sirius dropped his wand, swearing loudly.

"Why didn't Albus give me a complete set of clearances? I don't understand."

"Maybe there's something that Dumbledore doesn't want us to see."

"You will not imply that Albus Dumbledore has any ulterior motives."

"Of course not." Sirius managed to put more heart in his words than he felt.

"Good."

Watching her fruitless search and knowing she would find nothing wore at Sirius's conscience. He wanted so badly to tell Dorcas the truth. Cold fear stopped him, trickling down from his throat, through his spine and stomach. What if Dumbledore was right? What if there was another traitor in the Order, working undiscovered?

Dorcas stowed the photograph album in her robes. Sirius held the door open and watched her descend into the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for reading. I so appreciate your comments & kudos, they make me smile. When I'm finished posting the updated chapters here, I will copy them to HPFF and FF.net.
> 
> Hagrid's italicized quote is from _Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows_ Chapter 16: "Godric's Hollow."
> 
> Peeves has nearly quoted from Peter Beagle's novel and screenplay, _The Last Unicorn_ . Biscuits and butterbeer if you spot it :)
> 
> ...I must confess that the horrible pun in this chapter inspired my username. Sorry / not sorry :D enjoy!


	13. Invidia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucius, Narcissa, and the Lestranges make their next move.
> 
> Petunia Dursley mourns her sister.

**Brittany, France**

Hard November rain lashed the forest of Paimpont. Soggy brown oak leaves plastered the limestone walls of Castle Lestrange. In the courtyard, the local servants cast feeble charms to keep the flagstones clear. Gusty winds made their efforts futile, but the servants pressed on. Fear kept their eyes to the ground and their wands in motion.

Magic flowed from the very bones of the earth, underlying everything like groundwater. Even the Muggles sensed it and made everything true, as usual, into a children's tale: Merlin's Tomb, the Fountain of Youth. The Muggles sold their guidebooks, their postcards, and useless pewter spoons and pocketed their paltry earnings, mocking the true power below their feet.

Behind their backs, the servants made superstitious, warding gestures. Watching from the warmth and light of the salon, Lucius Malfoy felt their caution was wise. He and the Lestranges bore the brunt of the Dark Lord's punishment for Snape's betrayal. Bellatrix retreated to her rooms when the Dark Lord was finished with her, tended only by her cringing house-elf.

Walden Macnair poked at the embers of the dying fire. "Seen Toothy lately?" The executioner chuckled. "Heard the Potter girl messed his jaw up so bad, Bellatrix had to send somebody to kidnap a healer from St. Mungo's."

Lucius forced a rueful laugh and sipped at his hot, mulled red wine. Nutmeg and cloves combined with the warmth of the wine to loosen the constriction in his chest and throat. "Rabastan's an unhappy fellow today. The little Mudblood had more up her sleeve than I would have guessed."

Macnair's voice dropped to a husky whisper. "Think she was really Imperiused?"

Lucius sobered and set down his empty tankard. He made a pretense of smoothing his clothing, twisting the heavy silver cuff links bearing the Malfoy arms. "How Snape pulled it off, I've no idea. Before I kill him I'll be sure to find out."

His wife Narcissa, lay a white hand on his shoulder. Lucius covered it with his own, exerting a gentle pressure. Her impassive gaze softened just at the moment of eye contact and no longer. "Dolohov and Nott are back from Cokeworth. They found nothing."

"What's in Cokeworth?" frowned Macnair.

"You should be asking, 'What was in Cokeworth?'" Narcissa's smooth face quirked with amusement. "Snape's old sty in Spinner's End."

Lucius chuckled. "Severus isn't that stupid."

"Surely not, but the Muggles may thank us for sanitizing that part of town." The Malfoys bent their fair heads together, laughing.

"Lucius!" Swathed in black sable, Bellatrix cut a fearsome figure at the top of the marble stair. Swirling her silk-lined cloak around one arm, she swept into the salon. A housemaid crept up to her with a steaming cup of wine. Bellatrix dismissed her with a nauseated glare.

Lucius gave his sister-in-law an ironic bow, but Narcissa stared straight ahead at the fire. Bellatrix ignored her sister's insolence. "The Dark Lord has ordered me to trace the Portkeys. Lucius and Narcissa, you will assist me." She brandished an intricately detailed chart drawn in black and blood-red ink. Midway down the scroll were circled "Brixton Station, London" and "Shrieking Shack, Hogsmeade".

"Bella, I've got to go home. I've left Draco with the nurse far too long. I can't be haring off on a wild goose chase."

Bellatrix flared up. "You've gotten soft, Cissy. Useless! You'll spoil that baby. He won't be of any use to Our Lord."

Narcissa looked sidelong at Bellatrix. Her smooth white-blonde hair fell forward over one shoulder. "What higher purpose have we, dear sister, than to bring forth pure children to strengthen the Blood?"

Bellatrix bared her teeth and took a step toward Narcissa. Narcissa made a swift motion for her wand, but Lucius grasped her forearm, holding her back. The tense silence was broken by a sudden burst of rain against the tall mullioned windows.

Bellatrix's refusal to bear a child was a constant source of family tension, but Narcissa had never spoken so against her sister. The last thing Lucius needed was a duel. He squeezed Narcissa's wand arm, surprisingly firm under her silken sleeve.

"I wouldn't consider disobeying Our Lord, my love. We all failed Him and we are unworthy of His grace." Narcissa subsided, all her fury gone. She was surely thinking of their little son, helpless and alone with only servants to protect him. Lucius could think of nothing else.

"Mistress," said a squeaky voice at Lucius' knee, "Posey brought your medicine." With shaking fingers, the house-elf passed a beaker up to Bellatrix.

"Another cup for our brother," ordered Bellatrix. The house-elf stayed, her twig-like fingers working together with anxiety. She stared at the mantelpiece with bulging eyes. A hairline crack repaired in haste was just visible in the shifting firelight. Bellatrix's robe flared as she aimed a kick at her reluctant servant. "Now!" The elf departed in haste.

Narcissa smoothed her hair. "Something the matter with your house-elf, Bella?"

Bellatrix laughed. "What little brains she possessed have been turned to pâté. Snape's little pet was a bit rough with her.

"Might have been good for her. All that family of elves are sub-standard. Mother always said so." Narcissa and Bellatrix smiled as one: fair and dark, full moon and new. Lucius sighed with relief. He could never rest easy while the Black sisters were at odds.

Bellatrix finished the dregs of her potion and dropped the mug to the floor with a negligent gesture. Barely visible as a streak of motion, the blonde house-elf collected the cup just before it smashed to the floor and disappeared as quickly as she came.

Outside, Dolohov and Nott stepped to the center of the rain-swept courtyard. Clutching a glowing blue Portkey, they disappeared in a swirl of black robes.

"Where are they headed this time?" inquired Lucius.

"I have ordered them to Surrey."

Macnair choked out a gravelly laugh. "What's in Surrey?"

Bellatrix's heavy eyelids drooped in keen anticipation. "A Muggle village called Little Whinging."

* * *

 

Dudley Dursley pulled himself up on the sofa. His plump sticky hands made divots in the chocolate velvet upholstery. Biscuit crumbs trailed from his fingers like buttery rain.

His mother sat still on the hard cushions, bony legs crossed tightly at the ankles and sweaty hands folded in her lap. Petunia stared into the empty grate as if her moss-colored eyes saw the ghosts of fires long extinguished.

The baby was not used to being ignored. His jowls crumpled. Immense tears flowed over stubby, blonde lashes, making tracks down his jam-smeared face.

Dudley's angry shriek tore down Petunia's spine, bringing her suddenly to her feet. The baby tumbled to the floor and howled with shock. Petunia snatched him from the carpet, checking him frantically for injuries. The toddler's screams had turned to sobs tinged with relief. He tried clinging to her black satin blouse, but his fingers could not find purchase. He dug his fingers in between the buttons, searching for her familiar, warm skin.

"Mummy's so sorry. Mummy loves Dudley. Mummy loves him." The baby's solid weight, a healthy two stone, nearly knocked the wind from Petunia as she sat heavily on the sofa. Her son curled tight against her, a trembling and teary bundle. Petunia's eyes widened briefly at the sensation of sitting in a drift of pulverized butter biscuit but she made no move to clean it up.

When Petunia closed her eyes, all she saw was her sister's face: first as a skinny, screaming infant, Petunia's first clear memory. Two-year-old Petunia begged them to take "it" back where it came from. By the time Lily was three and Petunia five years old, it was lovely to be a big sister. Lily grew into a pretty ruby-haired toddler, an object of envy in the shabby neighborhood near the woolen mill. Petunia doted on her baby sister, dressed her with more care than her favorite doll, and treasured every jealous gaze.

On the sofa, Petunia clutched Dudley harder. She pressed her cheek into his thick, barley-colored hair. The baby squirmed to be let down, his attention drawn by a children's program droning away on the telly. Mechanically, Petunia refilled his milk bottle and his biscuit bowl, relaxing a fraction as her son grew engrossed in the puppets' song.

Lily's strangeness grew slowly. It started with little things, like being able to catch a falling glass of milk before it slopped onto Petunia's clothes. Eight-year-old Petunia was proud of Lily's quick little hands, but there was something peculiar about the way the liquid in the glass seemed to freeze in mid-air and poured itself back into the drinking glass, nary a drop shed on the table.

It wasn't so bad until the kids at school started to notice. They called Lily a weirdo, a head case. Petunia was sent home from school with a black eye after the Headmaster called their mother.

Two girls from their street giggled across from the Headmaster's office. Petunia ducked her head and walked faster. "That goody-goody Petunia Evans! Yeah, the one whose dad is the foreman at the mill! She socked Colin Furvey right in the face with her lunch pail -- she actually broke his nose!" Petunia brought her flowered book bag up to her face and ran.

Lily went to Mummy and Daddy that night with floods of false tears. With the acid of jealousy eating into the love that had bloomed wholeheartedly for her sister, Petunia observed that Lily's blotchy, freckled face was even prettier than ever.

"Mummy, Daddy, I promise I didn't do anything wrong! Colin was teasing us in the schoolyard. He tried to take Mary Brewer's lunch money. I was so angry. I was about to run and tell a teacher but before I even said anything, his rucksack flew right off his shoulder! All by itself, way up into the top of a tree! It must have been the wind, or somebody threw it? I don't know! Then he came after me!" Whimpering, Lily buried her pigtailed head in her arms. Their mother wept, their father patted her back, and Lily was forgiven, as always.

Lily hadn't even mentioned Petunia. Terrified for her sister, Petunia charged in swinging her pink metal lunch pail with both hands. Colin Furvey bellowed in pain and came after her, forgetting Lily's freakish stunt.

The next morning, Lily left the house for school, pale but unmarked. Petunia, bandaged and in disgrace, was left behind with their mother.

"Mummy, Lily embarrassed me in front of the entire school and she wasn't punished at all! I'm out of school for an entire fortnight! I can't believe you aren't punishing her! She started this! It's not my fault my sister is crazy!"

Petunia and Lily's parents never spanked them, but the look their mother turned on her at that moment made her wish they had. Their mother was ashamed of Petunia: ashamed of her normal daughter, her good daughter. Something deep inside Petunia turned to plaster, cold and hard to the touch but prone to shattering at the least vibration.

Lily never even thanked her for beating up that idiot Furvey. Lily's manner to her sister turned skittish, hangdog. Lily never again knocked on Petunia's door when she had a nightmare, but sometimes, Petunia heard her sobbing on the other side of the wall.

And then came Severus Snape.

On the chocolate velvet sofa, Petunia wept for her baby sister. The funeral had done nothing at all to help her. The lovely church in Godric's Hollow was full to bursting, defiled by cloaked freaks. That old ghoul Dumbledore prated on at the podium about love and duty, sacrifice and devotion: a mockery of a real funeral. Petunia could bear only a few lines of his eulogy before running back out into the cold, clutching her coat and scarf tight about her face.

Petunia returned from the funeral past dusk, pale and swollen-eyed from driving halfway across the south of England. Dudley was already in bed.

"Better this way," said Vernon. He poured her a hot cup of tea. Seeing her shaking hands, Vernon turned back to the sideboard for a splash of liquor. Petunia would have been touched by her husband's tender care but she was too cold inside to appreciate it. She gulped the hot liquid back all at once. The numbing waves coursed to her hands and feet.

"You're well shed of them now, lovey. They can't get to you anymore. Not your sister, or that useless sack of dog shit she married, either."

"But the boy," croaked Petunia. "He could be in trouble. Mummy and Daddy wouldn't be able to bear it if they knew. Their grandson all alone!"

Vernon swelled up at once. "If those - whatyoumacallum - gangster wizards are as bad as you've said, we're staying well clear of the whole lot. They'll come after Dudley. They'll come after us! Petunia, I won't let you throw yourself down your freak of a sister's grave! She wasn't worth it."

The breath left Petunia's stomach like it had been hit with a forceful punch. "Of course you're right. Her people said they were searching for the boy. If he is alive, somewhere, he's far better off in their world than ours."

"Good girl, Petunia." Vernon sat down beside his wife, covering her delicate hands with his own. She hadn't removed her driving gloves yet. "I'll keep you safe. You're a Dursley now and I'll take care of you. None of that rubbish will ever come near you ever again."

On the crumb-strewn, brown velvet sofa, Petunia curled into a ball. She buried her face in an unyielding cushion, willing herself to cry, to scream, to rage. The awful silence and her frigidly empty soul were worse by far. Dudley's program was still on, but he sneaked anxious glances at his mother every few minutes. Failing to catch her eye, he reached further into his biscuit bowl for comfort.

Seeing Dumbledore at the funeral had sent Petunia's mind crashing into the past, going over and over the paths of her childhood. Where had she gone wrong?

After Snape and Lily stole the letter from Dumbledore and Lily shamefacedly pushed it back under her door, Petunia burned it, but she was never able to erase the words from her mind.

_"My dear Miss Evans, I understand your plight more than I can possibly tell you. I understand the pain of being separated from your younger sister, whom you have cared for and protected all her life. Sadly, it is impossible for a student to enter Hogwarts without evidence of strong and inborn magical ability. If it were merely a matter of being 'magical enough,' as you said in your touching letter, the Ministry would have secured you a place at Hogwarts many years ago. Indeed, Lily herself has been on the entrance list for Hogwarts School since she first entered Senior Infants at the age of five. Our magical government, if you care to label it so, very rarely misses a potential student._

_I urge you to stay close to your sister, to enjoy first-hand knowledge of a world most non-magical humans can only imagine is real. I urge you, also, to explore your own individual talents and dreams, and to make use of what life has given to you, rather than letting your (quite justified) grief and disappointment color your promising life._

_There may come a time when, instead of protecting your younger sister, that Lily's particular talents may empower her to protect you and perhaps your entire family. If that time ever comes, Petunia, please remember that I asked you to stay close to her. Lily will always be your sister, and even in my brief acquaintance with her, I can easily see how much she will always love you."_

Petunia uncurled her body from its tight nautilus-shell contortion. She felt like she had cried herself out and fallen asleep but her eyes were hot and dry. Stiff and aching, she gathered Dudley into her arms. The baby had clambered up on the sofa and fallen asleep like an overgrown puppy with his head on his mother's knee. Tenderly, she wiped a streak of saliva from his cheek.

A chemical odor crept into the living room. In summer, Petunia would have thought it was a barbecue started with too much lighter fluid, but it was November, the middle of a weekday afternoon. Sniffing suspiciously, Petunia clutched Dudley to her shoulder and crept toward the kitchen.

Purple-black smoke erupted from a tall man's wand. In Petunia's orderly, shining, porcelain-white kitchen, such a man was an incongruity, an impossibility. Cloaked in black and masked in silver, the man laughed as Petunia took a hasty step backward. She knew exactly what he was.

Petunia pressed Dudley's sleeping head tighter into her collarbone until she could almost feel her fingers cracking with the pressure.

Petunia backed rapidly into another, rangier man who blocked the door. He chuckled affably, but the silver mask muffled his speech. "Going somewhere, Mrs. Dursley?"

Petunia screamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In creating Castle Lestrange, I have been inspired by the local Arthurian folklore of Brittany, but all references to real places are fictitious. Big thanks go out to pookha from the HPFF community for his assistance and encouragement.
> 
> I've updated the hometown of Snape and the Evans family. (Cokeworth) I have to confess that I'm not on Pottermore, so if I'm missing anything important, I'd appreciate a heads up.
> 
> Many thanks for reading! Mulled wine all around. (For readers of age anyway...)


	14. Confundus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Petunia battles to save herself and Dudley.
> 
> Dorcas has an unpleasant surprise.

A terrified face thrust itself through the embers in Hagrid's fireplace. The large man stumbled backward with surprise and nearly smacked Sirius in the head with an oversized poker.

"Hey!" Sirius frowned, trying to shield himself with a folded _Daily Prophet_.

"Shut up, Black!" Dorcas hurled herself toward the fire, coming to a skidding halt on her knees. Arabella Figg was hyperventilating in the Floo, shedding lime-green sparks from her head and shoulders like fireworks. "Mrs. Figg! What's wrong?"

The Squib panted in terror. "It's them! They're at the Dursleys'!"

"I'm coming!" Dorcas reached into her satchel and pulled out something translucent -- James's Invisibility Cloak. She wadded the cloak into a shimmering ball and stuffed it in her pocket.

Sirius scrambled to the hearth, ready to go with her. Hagrid tripped over a footstool and nearly crushed Dorcas and Sirius in his haste to get to the Floo before them.

Dorcas stopped him. "Rubeus, it's much too dangerous! You're not a qualified wizard, and even if you were, you don't fit under the cloak! Go to Dumbledore and tell him to send everybody he's got!"

"But they're Death Eaters, Dorcas!" Hagrid moaned. "You can' go all alone!"

"He's right, you can't take them on by yourself!" Sirius broke in. "I've got to help you!"

Dorcas gave the men an exasperated growl. "I'd have to spend more time protecting you two than I would fighting the Death Eaters, you idiots!"

Hagrid fumbled for a handful of Floo powder. The corked bottle bounced to the rough stone floor and Dorcas made an agile grab for it. "No!" roared Hagrid. "Dorcas, don' do this!"

" _Petrificus totalus!_ " she shouted and slashed her wand at Hagrid. A Body-Bind Curse wasn't strong enough to hold the huge man. " _Impedimenta! Incarcerous!_ " White ropes fell around Hagrid's waist, as useless as chewed-up spaghetti.

Dorcas glanced fearfully over her shoulder at Sirius and he immediately grasped her meaning. " _Petrificus totalus!_ " they cried as one. Hagrid fell backward, shame and sorrow frozen on his bearded face.

Dorcas pushed Sirius through the Floo first. When she emerged after him, she shouted a long, complex spell into the emerald flames. They withered and went out at once, leaving only a smoking heap of ashes.

The faithful Squib, Arabella Figg, stood sobbing by her extinguished fireplace. Cats wound around her ankles, hissing at the disheveled figures clambering onto the brick hearth. Dorcas hastily pulled a pink compact from her pocket. "Arabella, here. Use this mirror to call Dumbledore! We had to put a Body-Bind on Hagrid, or he would have been through here right after us!"

"But you sealed my Floo! How are they going to get in?"

Sirius gaped at the Auror. "You sealed the Floo?"

Dorcas rounded on him, her lined face contorted with anger and smudged with ashes and spilled Floo powder. "That was a Ministry spell for official use only! If you dare to repeat it, you'll be clapped into Azkaban before you can scratch your skinny arse!" Sirius rocked back on his heels, too shocked to be offended.

Dorcas turned to Arabella, gripping her shoulders tightly. "Call Dumbledore. Have them Apparate right into your house. It'll be all right." Dorcas motioned to Sirius, swinging the Invisibility Cloak over both their heads. Leaving the garden gate swinging in the wind, they pelted along Wisteria Walk, nearly losing the cloak as they made a hard right on Privet Drive.

Purplish-black smoke curled from the rear of the brick row house. A wrenching scream cut through the fire. "Vernon! Help me!" a woman cried. A deep shout of rage muted the wail of a small child.

"Go, Sirius! Get the boy, I'll draw their fire!"

Without conscious awareness, Sirius felt his body elongate, reshaping itself between heartbeats. Padfoot slithered out from under the cloak, running ahead on all fours. His black fur blended into the gathering darkness. He heard Dorcas's astonished cry behind him but only ran faster.

Low to the ground, Padfoot sped beneath the inky indigo cloud. Dark magic left a sickening taste on the back of his tongue like acid reflux. He whined and scratched at the front door handle, finding it locked. He was briefly furious with himself for transforming so soon. Concentrating, the black dog worked to imagine the wand he had left behind with his clothes and his human body. _Alohomora!_

The front door swung open. Padfoot slunk through, toenails clacking on the polished wooden floor of the front hall. The smoke was so thick, the dog could use only his senses of smell and hearing to search for the child. Crashes and screams erupted from the room at the end of the corridor. Padfoot crept closer to the door, trying to ascertain the Dursleys' location.

"I keep telling you, my sister's dead!" Petunia sobbed. "I went to her funeral! They buried her next to that monster she married!"

Padfoot's ears pricked at the sound of Dudley's dwindling sobs. The baby's cries were weakening and his coughs were terrible. He crept closer, waiting for an opportunity to grab the child and run for safety.

"Your brat can't breathe much longer, Petunia," said Nott in a conversational tone. Nott was one of the oldest Death Eaters, one of Voldemort's closest cronies: he had turned murder into a refined amusement. "You're going to have to tell us where they are sooner or later."

Petunia's words came weakly, watered-down with agony. "How did you know my name?"

Antonin Dolohov's laugh rang with delighted malice. "Your slut of a sister's been sleeping with Severus Snape. _He's_ got no secrets from the Dark Lord." Petunia's enraged scream cut through the smoke. Dolohov cursed. "The Muggle bitch kicked me!"

Petunia gasped in renewed pain and fell hard to the white tile floor. Padfoot caught Dudley just as he slid from his mother's grasp, dragging him away by the crossed straps of his overalls. "My baby! That dog is taking my baby!" she shrieked as Padfoot labored to pull the child to safety. Luckily the garden door was only a few steps away.

Dolohov angrily raised his wand. " _Avada kedavra!_ " Bleeding and bruised, maddened by pain and the perceived loss of her baby, Petunia grabbed a metal kitchen bar stool and swung it at Dolohov's midsection.

The blow from the bar stool sent the spell flying off course, bouncing off the crystal-clear glass door of the microwave oven. The green ray struck Nott between the eyes; he crumpled onto Petunia's kitchen floor. Dolohov turned with a snarl on his scarred face. Suddenly his eyes widened and he too fell forward. Dolohov's wand clattered away, rolling under the refrigerator.

Petunia looked desperately from one prone figure to the other, as horrified as if she herself had struck the killing blow. She dropped the bar stool with a resounding bang, her thin face rigid in a soundless scream of despair.

"It's all right, Mrs. Dursley. I Stunned him." Petunia whirled around, blood running down her face from a broken nose. She grabbed a sharpened meat fork out of the knife block on the sideboard. A tall red-haired man stood in the kitchen doorway, smiling and holding out one hand in friendship. In his other hand, he held a wand just like Lily's, but he wore a firefighter's heavy coat. "Don't panic. I'm a friend of Professor Dumbledore's."

"Don't you even say that name in front of me!" said Petunia shrilly. Gideon Prewett quirked a ginger eyebrow at the injured woman.

"Gideon, I warned you," said his twin brother, laughing as he came in from the back garden, where the local fire brigade were pulling their apparatus back toward the street. "Mrs. Dursley, I'm Senior Auror Fabian Prewett. This is my brother, Gideon. We were friends of your sister's... terribly sorry for your loss."

Petunia threw him a hateful look and straightened her torn, bloody black skirt. "All I want is my baby and then I want both of you freaks out of my house! When Vernon gets home..." Petunia's reddened eyes passed once more over the bodies on the floor. An hysterical moan rose from her chest.

Dorcas Meadowes entered the kitchen, holding the arm of a fireman. The young man's eyes were glazed over and he looked as if he'd recently had a grand piano dropped on his head.

"I see the problem now, ma'am," said the fire inspector. "It's your microwave oven; you've gone and put a piece of silver inside it. See?" Tipsily, the young man fumbled with the catch on the microwave door. Dorcas slipped a silver teaspoon into his hand, muttering a foreign word under her breath. He gazed dreamily at the spoon in his fingers, handing it back to Petunia. "Here you go, then! That'll go up like Christmas crackers. You watch what you put in your microwave from now on. Makes a nasty, smoky fire, but we've got it put out."

"Yes... the fire does seem to be out." Petunia could see no physical source of the flames. The kitchen was dirty and smeared with blood, but only faintly reeked of the corrosive smoke that had choked the air just minutes before. "Where's my baby?" she demanded.

"We've gotten him out in the fresh air, Mrs. Dursley. He'll be just fine." Petunia nearly collapsed with relief. Gideon Prewett caught her and took her out into the cold, windy twilight.

Dudley Dursley sat in the damp grass on a gray wool blanket. Wrapped in another blanket, he was quite warm and comfortable. His sticky, sooty hands clutched at the velvety ears of an oversized black dog. Petunia gasped, throwing herself from Gideon's supporting arm into the grass. She tried grabbing Dudley away from the dog, but he refused to be dislodged. The dog whined and thumped his tail as the baby squeezed his ears even harder.

"That's one smart dog you've got there," the fireman rattled on. He acted intoxicated: Petunia was disgusted. "Dragged the baby right out the kitchen door! Never seen such a thing!"

"That's not my dog," Petunia said flatly. She glared at Gideon, and he looked questioningly at Fabian, who shrugged.

Dorcas Meadowes rolled her eyes. "Heel," she said to the black dog. He licked Dudley's face. The baby laughed and let go of his ears. "Good boy," Dorcas said ironically, laying a hand on top of the massive animal's smooth head as he came to stand quietly at her side. "Come with me, Mrs. Dursley. You can't stay here tonight, there's too much water damage from the firefighters. Vernon's on his way home... he'll meet you at Mrs. Figg's."

Petunia agreed if only to get her baby inside and out of the cold. She really had no desire to go anywhere with these people, even if they had saved her life, and - she clenched her jaw tight - her baby's life, too. She did feel more charitable toward the dog than any of them. The poor dumb animal was only acting on instinct.

The neighbors stood in their doorways, whispering intently among themselves. Petunia held her head as high as she could. She was glad in that moment that Lily's obnoxious ginger friends had stolen those coats from the fire engine: at least she had a cover for being seen with them in public.

Arabella Figg hugged Petunia at the door, shocking her with the strength and fervor of her greeting and nearly making her drop Dudley. Petunia had never really spoken to the Figg woman, only noted with distaste when she moved in with all those horrible cats. "I'm so glad you're all right! And little Derek, too!"

"His name's Dudley, but thank you," Petunia replied with a tight little nod. Even such a slight motion of her head made a twinging ache run all the way down her back. Petunia hurt all over, both from the physical injuries she had sustained and the rush of adrenaline leaving her body. Walking stiffly, she let herself be led into the parlor where Mrs. Figg appeared at her elbow with a steaming cup of tea. Petunia hesitated before sitting down in the plaid wing chair - it was coated with tufts of cat fur - but remembering what a state she herself was in made her less choosy.

Dudley drowsed against her shoulder and Petunia held him closer, as much for her own comfort as anything. His dear chubby face was coated with grime and with smudges of his mother's blood.

The black dog padded into the room, shook himself, and curled up at Dorcas's feet. The Auror stared rudely at Petunia for a few minutes before speaking. Her bright blue eyes shone out from behind smudged cat-eyed spectacles.

Petunia's voice was scratchy from smoke and screaming. "The men who attacked us said that Lily is alive." She gave a short, bitter laugh. "They were quite insistent that the funeral was all a sham. Do you know how much it hurts when they point those sticks at you? What's the word they said again? _Crucio?_ "

On the floor, the black dog thumped his tail and whined. Dorcas rapped him smartly between the ears with a bony knuckle. Petunia gave an offended sniff. Anyone who would treat a simple animal that way couldn't be trusted. It reminded her too much of Severus when he was a child, she thought with a shiver.

Petunia's fear reinforced her anger. She went on rapidly, in a hushed, clipped voice, conscious of the sleeping baby on her shoulder. "The least bit of human courtesy you could possibly show me when I have been accosted and tortured in my own home by magical hit men, or whatever the hell they were, would be to tell me where my sister is! Where is her baby? They said she's been seen with Severus Snape!"

Dorcas motioned urgently to Gideon Prewett. The rangy redhead lounged in the doorway, still wearing a fireman's coat. He slipped into Mrs. Figg's brightly lit kitchen.

"Mrs. Dursley, I can't even begin to express how sorry I am that we did not arrive in time to rescue you."

"Sorry? They tried to smother my baby! They used magic on me, and more! If it weren't for your damned dog..." The dog's ear twitched and Petunia eyed him suspiciously.

A firecracker exploded in the kitchen. Petunia shrieked and covered Dudley's head with both hands. With her heart going like a jackhammer, she curled herself into a ball around the baby's solid form.

"Mrs. Dursley, it's all right! It's only someone Apparating in!" Dorcas jumped to her feet, and the dog followed her into the kitchen. "Albus! You're just in time, but I'll warn you, you're not going to get a very friendly welcome."

A familiar musical baritone answered. "It's quite all right, Dorcas. We've gotten ourselves into this predicament and we'll have to get ourselves out of it somehow, won't we? Oh, hello, Padfoot." Dumbledore bent down to pat the black dog's head.

Dorcas Meadowes looked from Professor Dumbledore down to the dog's panting face. Her narrowed eyes traveled slowly back to the white-bearded wizard. A look of utter fury and disgust crossed the older woman's rigidly set face. She stormed out into the side garden and slammed the door.

"You are the absolute last person I wanted to see," Petunia rasped out. "Professor Dumbledore! You started this whole mess!" Completely abased, Petunia sobbed aloud. "Lily's dead, or maybe she's alive, and you... the funeral... your awful eulogy... and the baby! The Death Eaters told me Severus killed them! I always knew he would, I always knew it!"

The black dog came up to Petunia as she wept, walking slowly, his head hanging low. He moved gently and lay his head in her lap. Petunia's hand moved gratefully onto the dog's shoulders. She took a small comfort in the warmth of his fur and in the idea that at least one creature in Arabella Figg's house did not despise her for being ordinary.

Professor Dumbledore's eyes were bright with tears. "Petunia, my dear, you must know that I care very much for your sister. Her fate is of great importance to me, and Harry's as well."

Petunia hiccupped. Rubbing the dog's head with one hand, and holding Dudley tightly with the other, she slowly got control of herself. "Lily is alive?"

"Yes," he said. Petunia's sob stuck in her throat, frozen with astonishment. "She is alive, and as near as we can tell, young Harry is safe with his mother."

"Is it true about Lily and Snape, too?"

Dorcas Meadowes came back into the parlor, still pale with anger. Shaking her head wildly at Dumbledore, she drew her finger across her throat in a slashing motion.

Dumbledore ignored her. "I believe, and Auror Meadowes and her colleagues share my belief, that Severus saved Lily and Harry's lives. Wherever they are, we assume all three are together: Lily, Severus, and the baby."

"Oh, my God!" Petunia shrieked. This last loss of control did wake the baby. Dudley started screaming. "Lily and Severus, he always wanted her! It made me sick the way he looked at her, even when she was just a little girl!

"God, I hated James Potter, just because he was the world's biggest arrogant son of a bitch, wizard or not! He nearly ruined our wedding supper with those tricks of his, but Severus Snape is a million times worse! If my sister is alive and bloody shagging him, I will kill her myself!"

Petunia felt the black dog's warm, wet tongue licking her clenched hand, quite as if he heartily approved. There was something decidedly odd about that dog.

"Goggie!" Dudley reached for the black dog, his panicked sobs forgotten. Petunia reluctantly set her son down on the floor. He went immediately for the canine's soft ears. The dog looked up at Petunia with a long-suffering expression in his dark eyes and she actually chuckled.

Professor Dumbledore just stood there, tears leaking into his brilliant white beard. "I have every hope, dear Petunia, that we will return Lily and Harry to you unharmed. Severus is an uncommonly skilled young wizard and a good man, despite his youthful fancy for the Dark Arts."

"I think you're stretching things a bit, Albus," said Dorcas, a sardonic quirk on her thin lips. "A 'youthful fancy?' I've found reliable evidence that as recently as a week ago, Snape threatened Peter Pettigrew's life. Nobody in the Order has heard from the poor boy since! He's probably dead, and it's not much of a stretch to guess who killed him!"

Dumbledore sighed aloud. "Dorcas, I'm afraid there is much we must re-examine regarding our investigation."

"I have some more bad news," she went on, undaunted. "Scrimgeour's taking me off the Potter case."

Dumbledore stared at her. "What!?"

"Just as well, since you and Black seem to have solved my murder case without consulting me at all," muttered Dorcas, casting a dangerous look at the stunned Headmaster.

"Scrimgeour's been listening to Fudge," Gideon Prewett said with a derisive snort. "The murder of two young Order members who were putting themselves in mortal danger through their own actions isn't such a big priority as finding Lord Voldemort himself. Magical Law Enforcement is rather down on the Order at the moment."

"Gideon, Fabian, whichever one you are, please! Say You-Know-Who!" Mrs. Figg protested. She pushed a laden tea tray into the parlor. "Anyone for another spot of tea? A bit of cake?"

Baby Dudley whined for a piece of cake and devoured it eagerly, feeding the crumbs to the dog.

"It truly is remarkable how resilient little ones can be," said Dumbledore fondly. He squatted down beside Dudley and the dog with flexibility at odds with his apparent age. "Hello, young chap. I'm Professor Dumbledore. I like your dog very much."

"Goggie," said Dudley.

"He's learned a new word today at least," Petunia said with a trembling, teary smile. "Professor Dumbledore, do you really think Lily is safe?"

"I pray so."

"Thank you," said Petunia. She looked quickly at the cold fireplace, blinking tears from her eyes. She brushed at her nose with Dumbledore's proffered handkerchief and yelped with pain.

Dorcas approached with wand at the ready. "Let me fix that for you."

"No! No magic!" cried Petunia, shielding her face with both hands.

"It won't hurt." Dorcas tried to lay a comforting hand on Petunia's shoulder, but Petunia's glare made her reconsider. "Your husband won't be surprised if he finds you at a neighbor's house after a small kitchen fire, but he will wonder how you broke your nose."

"All right, then." Petunia squeezed her eyes shut, and clenched the arms of the hideous plaid wing chair. The dog padded out into the kitchen.

" _Episkey,_ " said Dorcas softly. " _Tergeo._ "

Petunia patted her suddenly painless nose. It was the same shape as always. How had she done it? Lily had never been able to do anything of the sort when they were girls.

Dorcas checked her over carefully. "I've cleaned off most of the blood as well. Any other aches and pains?" Dorcas healed most of Petunia's injuries, leaving only those that were consistent with an ordinary household catastrophe. "There. You're ready to go when Mr. Dursley gets here."

"Wait! Dorcas!" Sirius Black was standing in the front door, beckoning to the Auror.

"You!" hissed Petunia.

"Oh. Hi Petunia," Sirius said awkwardly.

The last time Petunia saw Sirius Black, his hair hung in loose heedless curls around his face; he'd taken great pains with his appearance, even with magic. Then he was immaculately dressed in a morning suit and cravat, standing up with Potter at Lily's wedding. Today, Dorcas's black dog had apparently shed all over his rumpled, dirty robes. Sirius's eyes were hollow and red as if he hadn't slept for days, and his hair was filthy, mashed to one side. Petunia was meanly glad to see him so disheveled.

"Sirius and Dorcas? A word, please?" Dumbledore beckoned both the elderly Auror and Lily's friend into the kitchen. Petunia strained to hear what they were saying but a buzzing sound filled her ears. She batted at the air -- a housefly must be nearby. Not that she'd be surprised with the pathetic state of Mrs. Figg's housekeeping.

Dorcas's infuriated voice cut straight through the buzzing sound. "Albus, you can't Obliviate a little baby! It might cause serious mental damage! He could end up with no long-term memory at all!"

Sirius' laugh came out as a derisive bark. "Come on, Dorcas! He's a nice enough kid for a Muggle, but would anybody really notice?"

"I'm ashamed of you!" hissed Dorcas. "Harry's own cousin! Did you ever stop to think, you mangy dog? He might very well be a wizard himself! Would you ever Obliviate a wizard's child?"

"I'm not mangy, for your information, and no, I would never!"

"Mr. Black... Madam Meadowes," said Professor Dumbledore. Both Sirius and Dorcas recognized that tone of voice from their school days and quieted immediately. "Our time draws short. I will modify Mrs. Dursley's memory myself. Mrs. Figg will keep her and the boy here until Mr. Dursley arrives. I'll ensure that they find a safer place to stay. Order protection will remain on them at all times. The rest of us should be well clear of here when Dursley arrives."

"I'll have my answers, Black," warned Dorcas.

"Yeah, whatever! Come on, let's go."

"My office in half an hour," said Dumbledore. The feuding friends shuffled into the kitchen, where an echoing bang heralded their departure.

* * *

"We'll have to stay with Marge until we get the kitchen repaired." Vernon Dursley's heavy moustache twitched with irritation. "Damn that fire brigade straight to hell! Your tax revenues at work, eh? They should have known it was only the microwave oven. I don't think they had to chop up our house with a fire-ax!" The heavy-set man huffed as he buckled the baby into his safety seat. Petunia sat slumped in the front seat of the car, staring off into the misty November evening, where the street lamps were coming on one by one. "You all right?"

"Yes, I suppose so, dear. Difficult day, wasn't it?" Vernon reached over to hold her hand as he pulled the car away from the curb.

In the back seat, Dudley reached back toward Mrs. Figg's house. "Goggie," Dudley sobbed. "Want goggie!"

Petunia reached back and patted her son's stiff little leg with an indulgent, hazy smile. The little poppet worked up quite a head of steam when he was upset; he was a spirited tot. "Now, my dearest, whatever is the matter? Mummy and Daddy will get you one, whatever it is!"

Dudley cried all the way to Aunt Marge's.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cliffhanger resolved -- sorry about that if you got caught!
> 
> I'm not sure whether it is "really" possible for a transformed Animagus to perform wandless magic, but that's why I love fanfiction. Don't you? I guess you wouldn't be reading if you didn't...
> 
> While writing this chapter, I made good use of the Harry Potter Lexicon's atlas section, especially the map of Little Whinging. Thanks as always for reading!


	15. Reenervate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorcas wants answers -- so too does Lord Voldemort.

Faint aromas of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding floated up from the lower floors of Hogwarts Castle. Piercing ghosts of children's laughter rang dissonant against the clink of cutlery on china plates.

Sirius Black eyed the golden bell pull hanging near the fireplace. His stomach growled again. Dumbledore was late, but he wouldn't have wanted him to starve. Sirius started to get up. Dorcas Meadowes' hard pale-blue stare pinned him to his seat.

"Dorcas, I told you I'm sorry."

The Auror turned her face away from him. Sirius slumped in the overstuffed velvet chair, nervous fingers pulling dog hair off his robes and rolling it into a ball. Surreptitiously he tucked the ball down between the cushions. Dorcas sniffed with distaste.

Dry snow sifted against the window. Feathery white drifts filled the outer depressions in the honeycomb of leaded glass. A sudden draft blew down the chimney, rippling the low flames in the fireplace. Fawkes flapped irritably on his perch.

"Dumbledore told me not to say anything-"

Dorcas cut him off. "Then save your breath till he gets here."

Sirius's heart sank. Dorcas's anger was unexpectedly painful, like having a favorite teacher suddenly turn on him. Damn it! She, of all people, should have understood.

A grinding sound heralded the Headmaster's arrival. The marble staircase spun in a slow pirouette and collapsed neatly into the cavity below the linteled door. Albus Dumbledore removed his plain black hat and set it down on a precarious stack of books. Fawkes pecked at Dumbledore's hand. The old Professor rummaged through his robe pockets and pulled out a small packet of pistachios. "Hungry, my friend?" The phoenix cracked the white shells in his powerful beak. Fragments rolled in between heaps of books and papers.

Dorcas's tension increased visibly. Finally she could hold back no longer. "You never told me Sirius was an Animagus. I should have arrested him!"

"He saved the Dursley boy."

Dorcas ignored him. "Do you know how many times I could have used an Animagus? You've set yourself so far above the rest of us, you don't share anything that really matters!"

"Madam Meadowes, you may also say the same of yourself."

Dorcas spluttered. Sirius shrunk further down into his chair, hoping to escape notice. "And you -- you're a grown man! Stop acting like you're going to be given a detention!"

Dumbledore settled wearily behind his desk and removed his pince-nez, rubbing the lenses clean on the edge of his sleeve. "I hoped that after all these years, Dorcas, you would have a greater understanding of my position."

"Nobody wants to see Voldemort beaten more than I do, Albus. I've devoted myself to the Order and let the Ministry come second. I've been reprimanded because of you, I've nearly lost my job. And what sort of help do I receive? What sort of thanks? You told Petunia Dursley that you solved my case before you told me!"

Sirius's voice came out small. "I said I was sorry, Dorcas."

"Merlin's pants, don't tell me you knew they were alive, too!" Sirius opened his mouth to defend himself. " _Silencio!_ "

Sirius grabbed his throat. Nothing but a strangled wheeze escaped. He pulled his wand out of his pocket and raised it toward the ceiling. Dorcas jumped into a defensive position but Professor Dumbledore raised his palms to stop her.

Golden ribbon erupted from the tip of Sirius's wand, curling into three-dimensional script above their heads. "What the hell was I supposed to do, break my vows? Professor Dumbledore said he was going to tell you as soon as it was safe. I had to trust him."

Dorcas answered tightly. "Breaking your vows never stopped you and Potter before."

Sirius's upturned wand wavered in his hand. Coils of golden satin fluttered slowly to the stone floor. Fawkes hopped down from his perch and glided to the floor, cocking his head with curiosity.

"Maybe I learned something from James. Maybe I learned when to shut up and follow orders. James might be alive now if he hadn't gone off with Peter."

Fawkes pecked curiously at Sirius's bitter words. Tangled accusations lay unwritten on the floor. Dorcas's wand flicked sideways as she released the Silencing Charm.

"Pettigrew was the traitor?"

Sirius massaged his throat before he spoke. "He was a Death Eater. We saw the brand."

Dorcas was quiet for several moments, studying the backs of her hands where they lay folded in her lap. When she raised her face, her eyes were damp. She looked older than Sirius had ever seen her.

"Pettigrew was in Minerva's House. She isn't going to take this well."

Dumbledore levitated a plain handkerchief into Dorcas's palm. "No, I expect not. She's already quite upset about the Potters. Hagrid told me yesterday that he'd never seen Professor McGonagall so broken up about a student."

Sirius and Dorcas shared horrified expressions. "Hagrid!"

Dorcas grabbed her wand and rushed to the fireplace, shaking a handful of Floo powder into the palm of her hand.

Sirius grasped her arm. "You can't do that! You sealed his Floo!"

Dorcas cursed and dragged Sirius toward the door, barely waiting long enough for the stairs to spool out from the hidden compartment. Professor Dumbledore followed.

The house at the edge of the Forbidden Forest lay as dark as midnight. Little snow drifts rippled across the gravel path, moved back and forth by the changing winds. The candles on the kitchen table had long since melted to pools of hardening beeswax. Hagrid lay by the cold fireplace, a fallen monolith.

Together, Dorcas and Sirius lifted the double Body-Bind. Dorcas knelt beside her friend on the uneven flagstones. Her gentle fingers brushed a rat's nest of black hair back from his broad forehead. "Rubeus, wake up." Either he could not hear her, or refused to do so.

Sirius poked Hagrid in the stomach. " _Reennervate!_ "

Hagrid's barrel chest swelled with a sudden intake of breath. An outpouring of filthy words proved his return to consciousness. "What in 'ell happened?"

Sirius poured firewhisky into a pottery mug the size of a coal hob. Hagrid knocked it back with a single gulp and drew the back of his huge hand across his mouth. "You did'n have to leave me lyin' like a dead man on me own kitchen floor. I woulda stayed put if ye'd asked me to."

Sirius gave a doubtful smirk. Comically tiny against Hagrid's wrist, Dorcas's fingers felt for his pulse. "I'm sorry. It was for your own safety."

"Was it really the Death Eaters?"

Dorcas nodded curtly. "It was a near miss, but both Mrs. Dursley and her son are alive. They tortured the poor woman for Lily's whereabouts."

Hagrid's florid face went rigid with astonishment. "Lily's alive? Bloody hell!" Gallon-sized teardrops splashed on the kitchen table.

Professor Dumbledore closed the cottage door firmly behind himself and dusted snow from the peak of his brocaded hat. "Sirius, perhaps you could revive the fire and put the kettle on. Many explanations have come due."

"I'd say so," muttered a resentful Dorcas.

In turns, Auror and Headmaster related the story they had pieced together. When Dumbledore spoke of Snape's rescue mission, Sirius covered an uncharitable scowl with the back of his hand. The old man's obvious pride in Snape was a little hard to take considering the circumstances. Sirius hoped that once he'd seen Harry and Lily alive and well, he could get over this nauseating feeling of envy. James' imagined taunt rang in Sirius's head. Jealous of Snivelly: now you've gone and hit rock bottom!

Hagrid blew his nose. "I just can' believe it. I just can' believe they're safe."

Sirius grimaced. "Do you really think they are, Professor? Dolohov gave Petunia some rubbish about Snape and Lily. Said they were involved."

"Consider the source, Sirius. Do you expect the truth from Death Eaters interrogating a Muggle? It's far more likely they were trying to goad poor Mrs. Dursley into releasing information."

"No, sir, but that's not terribly comforting."

Dorcas turned toward Sirius. The waning fire shone on her silvered hair and the rims of her glasses. "No one denies that Lily and Professor Snape were once very close friends and had a falling-out . If Lily is alive and went with Snape of her own free will, this opens up yet another possibility. You probably won't like it."

Dumbledore nodded. "Please go on."

"Perhaps Lily was under the Imperius curse, but that doesn't explain Harry's apparent survival. Surely it would have made far more sense for Snape to have delivered the boy immediately. Perhaps Snape promised she could keep Harry if she sacrificed James. Perhaps he won Lily to Voldemort's cause."

Sirius leapt up and pulled his wand on Dorcas. "Shut up! Lily would never turn.  Not my best friend's wife. Never!"

Dorcas returned his wild, rage-filled stare with calm. "Sirius, think about Peter Pettigrew. Until a few days ago, you would have stood up just as fiercely for him as you have for Lily. Yet you saw the Dark Mark with your own eyes." The sheer weight of Hagrid's hand on his shoulder was just enough to keep Sirius from leaping up and blasting the self-satisfied look off the Auror's face.

Dumbledore remained silent for some moments, weighing Dorcas's words. Finally, he spoke in a soothing tone. "I find it highly unlikely that a witch of Muggle parentage would willingly throw in her lot with the Dark."

The Auror continued in the same clinical tone. "I've assembled a series of leads with Sirius's assistance, but nothing has come together. I have the names of Snape's family in Ireland, cousins on the Prince side. I have a handful of Slytherin former students who aren't yet fully committed to the other side, but in the current climate, I don't expect much from these.

"Of course, there are the other teachers still to be questioned. Snape was closest to Slughorn as the previous Head of Slytherin. I didn't find anything useful in Snape's personal papers. There was one locked drawer which neither Sirius nor I could open."

"What about the Death Eater they captured at Petunia's?" Sirius asked. "Is he in any shape to talk?"

Dumbledore answered. "Mr. Dolohov is being transported to Azkaban for questioning. Mr. Nott's body has been taken to the Ministry morgue. I am hopeful the Aurors stationed at the prison will find Mr. Dolohov a productive guest."

Sirius spoke up. "I think we ought to take a look in that drawer. Can you open it, sir?"

"I believe so." Dumbledore chuckled. "You should know this before you return to Hogwarts: the ghosts are still buzzing about your encounter with Peeves. I'm sure all the students have heard the ditty by now. Quite catchy. Mr. Black, I do believe you've renewed your legend in the annals of Hogwarts School."

Kindly, Hagrid mistook Sirius's discomfort for a nobler emotion. He clapped his friend on the back. "We're gonna find Lily and Harry. They're gonna be all right."

Sirius shivered. "If we reach them before You-Know-Who."

* * *

 

Winter-cold fingers closed steadily around Bellatrix's pointed chin, pressing white marks into her flushed cheeks. Bellatrix half-closed her eyes in rapture. Lucius Malfoy worked hard to keep his expression neutral. Bellatrix's enthusiasm would get them all killed one day.

The Dark Lord released the woman abruptly. She fell to her hands and knees, her head drooped forward and dark curls trailing on the flagstone floor. Her labored breaths were magnified by the high, vaulted ceiling of the Great Hall. Voldemort rubbed his fingers clean in the dark folds of his robe. "I don't envy you, Lestrange. It's rather difficult to get through to this one."

Rodolphus answered uncomfortably. "Yes, my Lord."

"Forty-eight hours have passed since Snape and the Mudblood escaped, and you have found nothing. Yet along the way, you have somehow managed to misplace not only Snape and the Potter woman, but Nott and Dolohov as well." Voldemort's reddened eyes swept around the room, coming once more to rest on the groveling Bellatrix. "I assure you, Madam, I hold you fully responsible for the loss of Nott and Dolohov, two of my most faithful servants. If they are dead, your life is forfeit."

"My Lord, the Brixton Portkey was activated! Snape and the Mudblood must have been there, but we could find no trace of them. The Portkey for the Shrieking Shack is still out there. Potter's woman must have taken it. It's our best hope of finding them." Bellatrix lifted her face and wailed. Lucius' spine crawled. "Please, my Lord, I live only to serve you. My life means nothing if you are displeased with me."

Narcissa Malfoy stood beside her husband. Her cold little hand tightened convulsively around Lucius's fingers. Her alabaster face betrayed nothing, but Lucius knew his wife's thoughts as well as his own. Bellatrix's crimes would drag the Malfoys down as well. For love of his wife and child, Lucius stepped forward. "My Lord."

The Great Hall fell silent. "Malfoy."

"Last summer, my Lord, Severus Snape assisted me in securing certain spell books from the library of Hogwarts School."

"I remember. Go on."

"One of the oldest titles was in Welsh: a treatise concerning the interplay of Druid and medieval magic. Naturally, I couldn't decipher such primitive scratches, but Snape could."

Lord Voldemort raised the ghost of an eyebrow. Lucius fought to bring his shaking voice under control. It was imperative he did not draw too much attention to a flaw in his Master's knowledge. "I questioned Snape. He couldn't get off the subject quickly enough. I gather he once visited family in the area."

"I doubt very much that Severus is holed up with poor country relations. Knowing him, I rather think he'd prefer to enjoy his ill-gotten gains in private." Voldemort's quick smile forced appreciative laughter from his followers, though Mulciber did not look pleased at all.

"Regardless, I commend you, Malfoy. You may take dear Bellatrix and Narcissa to Wales immediately and follow these leads." Lucius bowed. Bellatrix crawled forward to kiss the hem of Voldemort's robes.

"My Lord, what of the Potter brat? What if he lives?" Risen disheveled from the floor, Bellatrix met the fearful glances with pride. Even for the Dark Lord's most fervent lieutenant she had opened a perilous line of questioning.

Voldemort stroked his bony fingertips up and down his own forearms. He nodded with grudging approval. "You are bold, Madam. Snape claimed the child was killed when he captured the mother, but you are correct to call any of the traitor's statements into question. If you find the child, bring him to me alive."

"Why, my Lord?"

Voldemort's cultured voice shattered, leaving behind a shriek of rage. "Do not question me further! You are all dismissed!"

Lucius and Narcissa hurried out. Bellatrix pushed her way back into the Great Hall, past her sister's panicked attempts to remove her. "But  my Lord!"

"You had best hope your brother-in-law is correct and that Snape is hiding in Wales. Madam Lestrange, you are dismissed." Rodolphus grasped his wife's unwilling arm and Lucius held the other. Both men pulled her bodily from the Great Hall.

Only Voldemort remained before the dimming fire. A serpent-headed walking stick, a gift from Malfoy, twirled quickly between his wasted fingers. Shreds of the blasted prophecy lay unravelled before him. The child marked as his equal, with powers he knew not. Part of Voldemort was reassured that the prophecy could be wrong: no living wizard possessed any magic he had not yet mastered. Why, was he not protected already, with four vessels for his soul?

Perhaps, after all, the Mudblood's brat was not the proper sacrifice. The prophecy could have applied just as well to the Longbottoms' boy, Neville. He deplored the necessity of killing the Longbottoms when recruiting them would be a far better use of Wizarding blood. Voldemort concluded that stamping out the entire bloodline  as well as the Potters' might prove in the end to be wise.

Unbidden, Dumbledore's smug face came to mind. _"Prophecy itself is meaningless, Tom. The art of interpreting it lies in predicting the actions of the credulous."_

Voldemort crushed the head of the walking stick in his palm. Silver dust rained down on his robes as bright as the stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your kudos, comments & follows! The remaining chapters are in very good shape and only need a few tweaks to be posted. If you spot errors please inform me, I've been editing this on my phone.
> 
> It won't be too long before I start work on the sequel once again. :) cheers all!


	16. Belladonna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Severus recovers under Myra's care and struggles with warring impulses.

Sleet ticked lightly against the small windows of Myra's cabin. A fitful wind drove the ice pellets harder against the glass, rushing and clattering like beads falling from a broken necklace. Severus Snape lay on the lumpy horsehair sofa, feigning sleep. It was better this way. If he remained in bed, he was badgered both by Myra and her overly solicitous daughter, who had grown a great deal since Severus had seen her last. Staying in plain sight eased the females' nerves.

Severus's neat arrangement did not apply to Harry Potter. Tiny footfalls approached the sofa, and the soft puffing sound of Harry's breathing came altogether too close to his ears. Hot little hands lay on his cheek for an instant before one of the Spring women snatched him away. Severus could have sworn that the child knew he was awake. As he had cause to remember, there was no fooling the Potter boy. Severus nearly smiled.

Lily lay curled on her side, facing away from the fieldstone hearth. Lit from behind, her auburn braid caught and magnified the light of the slow-burning fire. Severus slitted his eyes open a fraction to study her. It was an indulgence to watch her so closely without anyone the wiser. Lily rolled a yarn ball across the braided rug. The baby chased after it, laughing and babbling nonsense. Lily answered cheerfully enough, but her face remained expressionless, slack-featured.

Witnessing Lily's pain was his penance. Every day, Severus watched helplessly as Lily slipped further into mourning for James Potter, steadily losing the scant protections offered by shock and denial. As the days passed, Lily shrank further from those around her. Even with the child, she was artificial, frozen. She barely ate or slept. Over and over again, Severus imagined reaching out to her, but he guessed how she would react to any expression of sympathy. She had Myra for that.

Heavier steps bustled into the sitting room. "Lily, dear, could I please have your help with the dishes?"

Lily rose slowly and followed Myra out of the room. The child whimpered briefly and stretched his arms after his mother. Melora waggled a knitted teddy bear in front of her face. Distracted, the boy squealed and crawled toward his playmate. Melora laughed, catching his little body in her arms and turning him upside down for a tickle. Melora cast a quick look toward the sofa, gauging the effect on her intended audience. With Severus apparently asleep, the girl released Harry to find his own amusement. Nonplussed, the child plopped down on the rug and gnawed wetly on the teddy bear's tattered woolen ears.

Severus's eyes slid truly closed. When he returned to consciousness, the first thing he heard was Lily's laughter. "James is, I mean... he was just the same, a bottomless pit. I swear he was still growing! I think he ate up my mistakes faster just to get them out of the way."

Myra chortled. "Now I know where Harry gets his appetite. We manage all right in the wintertime with the greenhouse and the hens, but I'll have to send Melora down to the village for supplies as soon as this storm lets up. My knee isn't quite up to the walk in this horrible weather."

Lily responded in a worried voice. "Is there any other way? We could Summon things from somewhere else. They'd never notice at Hogwarts. Even my house must have a lot of packages left in the cupboards."

"No, dear. We are bound by our oath to the Mother."

Lily was quiet for a moment. Severus had already guessed her opinion of Myra's strictures against unnecessary magic. Lily's practicality led her to use whichever method came easiest to hand. Being Muggle-born, she was hard put to imagine going without magic as a romantic sacrifice for an ideal.

"I know it won't be easy for you to let Melora go. It will be very dangerous."

"Melora's quite able to defend herself. She's always complaining that I think she's Harry's age." Severus knew he was supposed to be asleep, so he suppressed another smile. He knew Myra well enough to recognize an attempt at deflecting serious discussion. "We've been so lonely since Severus went away. I wish that our meeting had been under happier circumstances, but we're very glad you came to us."

Lily blew her nose. "I've been meaning to ask you something. How did you bring up Melora all alone? I always had James. He may not have been too much help at the beginning, but he was always there. I don't know how I'm going to do it by myself!" Lily's voice spiraled upward in despair.

Severus kicked the heavy crocheted afghan off his legs. With one hand, he gripped the roughened back of the ancient sofa and willed himself upright. As he crossed the sitting room, waving off Melora's helpful hands, Lily spoke again. "The awful thing is that when I think about it, I know we'll be lucky to survive that long. They must be coming for us. I don't think I can do both! I can't care for him day to day and protect him from them."

"The Mother never gives us more than we can bear. James will always be with you in spirit."

Sweating, Severus leaned heavily on the door frame and schooled the heavy lines of pain and effort from his face. Lily sat hunched over at the table. Her shoulders were crumpled painfully, and her face was pressed into a sodden handkerchief.

"That's partly what I'm afraid of. James would hate knowing Severus is under one roof with me and the baby. They hated each other so much! I keep thinking James would never forgive me."

Lily wiped her eyes on her sleeve. When saw Severus in the doorway, she flushed dark red. His heart hammered miserably.

"You shouldn't have gotten up," Lily scolded.

"I'm all right. Listen..."

Lily rose swiftly and reached up to push against his shoulder, effectively cutting him off. "Like hell you're all right. You should be in bed." Myra watched them go, a shadow of pity and compassion in her motherly face.

Lily shepherded Severus back to the sitting room. Restraining herself from an outburst, Lily held her green eyes a little too wide open, her mouth a little too fixed. With an imperious shake of the horrible afghan, Lily motioned to the sofa. Severus lay down meekly and allowed her to drape the cover over his legs.

"I'm going to put the baby to bed. I don't want to hear anything from you! Not a sound."

After Lily left, Severus was alone. Even Melora left him in peace, beckoned to the greenhouse by her mother. A softly off-key melody slipped out from under the bedroom door. Lily was singing the child to sleep.

Severus knew the song, it was popular when they were children: a simple, chordal melody with sentimental lyrics, thinly scored with guitars. Petunia listened to it incessantly during the last summer he spent with the Evans girls. Severus remembered the sounds at the end of the phonograph record, the empty thump like an uneven heartbeat and the scratching noise as Petunia pulled the needle across the record to begin again. Somehow, it was the absence, the heartbeat, the scratch that kept coming back to him, more than the songs themselves.

A feeling of solid warmth against his forearm brought Severus slowly awake once more. The fire on the hearth had nearly gone out, casting the homely sitting room in a wavering orange glow. Lily sat cross-legged on the floor beside him, huddled in Myra's old gray dressing gown. Her shoulder pressed against his arm, and the end of her braid tickled Severus's fingers.

"What time is it?"

"Quarter past twelve. I couldn't sleep. Myra left me your last dose for the night." Severus struggled to sit up straighter. Lily's fingers curled around the mug. Her ragged fingernails, bitten and broken, scraped his hands as she gave him the potion. "She says she makes it worse every day so you'll get better faster."

Severus swallowed the dose. Tonight, Myra had added a touch of nightshade, acrid on the back of his tongue, dry as ashes. Lily sat back down on the sitting room floor, this time leaning carefully away from him. Severus closed his eyes once more.

"Don't go back to sleep. I was going to help you back to your room."

"I'm sure I can manage."

"For God's sake! Why can't you admit that two days ago, you nearly died?"

"Because we haven't got that much time." Lily's swollen eyes were quickly downcast at his words, her half-unraveled braid falling forward over one shoulder. Severus wanted nothing more in the world than to reach down and cup her face in both hands. He wanted to offer her shelter and hope, but it would be false comfort, a self-serving lie. "Lily, I can't protect you like this. Take Harry and run."

"I couldn't do that! You know what they'd do to Myra and Melora if they tracked us here."

Severus chuckled darkly. "Trust me, the Spring women are far more dangerous than they seem. I am, quite honestly, more afraid for the Death Eaters."

An unwilling smile twitched around the corners of Lily's mouth. "I can't just leave you here."

"It doesn't matter. Whether I burn myself out or whether the Dark Lord himself finishes me off, I've got nothing to lose. You have everything... you have Harry. If he is the boy in the prophecy, Harry is the only one who can stop him."

"Don't talk like that! I can't stand it." Lily scrubbed at tear-filled eyes with her knuckles, a childlike gesture. Even her most unconscious movement drew him in and would have sealed his love forever had it not already been given.

Severus closed his fingers over hers and brought her damp, trembling hand to his lips. Lily startled at his kiss, but she did not pull away. He turned her hand over, kissing the soft center of her palm. Lily's breathing quickened. _If I am truly about to die,_ he thought, _let it be because of this._

When Severus at last released her hand, Lily curved it slowly around the back of his neck. Her fingers glided over a bandaged cut, lingering over the wound and healing, phoenix-like, with her tears. She leaned forward into his arms, burying her face in his shoulder. It felt so right to have her there. Severus dared to run one hand down the center of her back, tracing her spine through thin layers of flannel. Finally, he circled both arms around her waist, closed his eyes, and breathed in the warm scent of her hair. Her fragrance did not remind him of lilies: Severus had always found them cloying. Lily's true scent was a blend of rose and lilac, grounded by the faint acid of her sweat: a hundred times better than his faulty memory could hold.

Lily pulled back. Severus felt the sudden acceleration of her heartbeat through her shoulder blades. "Did you hear that?" she breathed.

"No, I didn't hear anything."

Lily's face worked soundlessly in the firelight. Her eyes roamed the far corners of the room, both frantic and guilty. "Must have been the baby. I have to go."

Severus let her go. What else could he have done? _Take what you want,_ said a high-pitched voice in his memory. _Take the Mudblood, take your birthright, as together, we shall take the world._

 _Such is my rebellion,_ thought Severus with wry self-hatred. With a clammy hand, he covered the twisted skin of his left forearm. Stabs of pain coursed deep beneath the Dark Mark. Sundered mortal nerves tried desperately to bridge the knot of cursed flesh. The barrier between Severus and his soul stood obdurate no matter what sophistry he employed to justify his own actions. He had taken the Mark so lightly, thinking himself so clever, so invulnerable to deceit. Severus had never known the true power of the Mark, never imagined the commitment wrung from his own mortal body.

Severus waited until the faint rustles from Lily's room had ended. The nightshade beat heavily in his pulse, steadying his heart. As a not unwelcome side effect, the nightshade widened his pupils so that he could see well enough to reach his bedroom. Severus carefully rose, pushing the heavy afghan to one side. In spite of himself, he stopped in front of Lily's door, leaning forward to listen. Immediately he wished he had left well enough alone. Lily was crying.

 _Open it and go to her. Open the door, you gormless bastard._ Severus reached for the cast-iron latch, but his hand dropped in defeat. _It's Potter she wants,_ he justified. You'll only get in the way. _Better to give her some privacy._

His own bed was cold, the sheets damp with an icy draft blowing through the mortar between the massive oak logs of Myra's cottage. Severus pulled up the blankets to still his shivering. Through the wall came the quiet sounds of Lily's misery. He covered his eyes with his arm, willing self-control. Her fragrance escaped from the fabric of his nightshirt. Severus buried his face in the bend of his elbow, inhaling what he had left of her: air and light and a melody gently slipping out of tune.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	17. Diffindo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorcas continues her investigation using dubious means.

"I don't know anything about Professor Snape," protested Pomona Sprout. "I sit next to him at the staff table and I could hardly tell you what he likes for breakfast." Dorcas listened patiently, noting the teacher's agitation. Sliding along her potting bench, Pomona ducked behind an unfamiliar plant with purplish, hairy blossoms. Dorcas reached out to brush the stalks aside and quickly raised her wand in defense as the flowers buzzed to life, vibrating like Muggle fluorescent light bulbs. "Don't upset my ultraviolet mums. They're very sensitive."

Dorcas squinted against the blinding lilac glare. "Please come down to Hagrid's for tea. I'll explain everything."

Sprout's muddy hands relaxed a little on the edge of the scarred wooden bench. The violently bright chrysanthemums dimmed at her touch. "Hagrid will be there?"

"Yes, if that makes you feel better."

Isolated flakes of snow drifted idly down to the stony path. Dorcas had tromped up and down this hill so many times in the past week. Hagrid's house had become a place of comfort and security, a place where she could lay down the burdens of Order and Ministry alike.

Professor Sprout's nervous tension increased step by step. By the time they crossed the remains of the frost-blasted pumpkin patch, Sprout's steps had shrunk and her plump body bowed in fear. Dorcas stood behind her, subtly blocking her means of escape. 

Rubeus Hagrid swung the door open, beaming with welcome. Rubeus's skills as a baker were dubious at best, but Dorcas's stomach growled at the aromas of cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla spilling from the warm kitchen.

Hagrid lifted a ten-gallon crock of firewhisky from its customary nook in the wall. "Will yeh take a toddy, Pomona my dear?"

"I really shouldn't," said Sprout warily, eyeing Dorcas with mistrust.

"Ah, don' be afraid of our Dorcas," the huge man chuckled. "She ain't Petrified anyone yet. Dry yer feet, m'dear."

Dorcas let that one go and readied her wand to help lift her cloak to the pegs set in the wall. At her own eye level, she noticed a new peg, whittled carefully by hand, the fresh wood still yellow with the sunshine of summers past. She looked quizzically at her friend, but he was searching for a clean mug for Professor Sprout. Dorcas hung her cloak on the new peg and stroked the wrinkles out of it. One by one, snowflakes melted from clear white geometrical patterns into damp diamonds sparkling in the lamplight.

Dorcas waited until Hagrid had set a mug and a plate of odd-looking biscuits before each place. Struggling with the oversized kettle, Dorcas filled the teapot. He reached forward to steady her elbow; his hand cupping her elbow as it would an eggshell.

As the tea drew, Dorcas and Professor Sprout faced one another with their hands steepled tightly on the scrubbed wooden table. Neither woman made a move toward the biscuits.

"We'll be ruinin' our suppers soon, ladies. I heard it was shepherd's pie up at the castle tonight. Better strike while the biscuits are hot. Hagrid took a large bite in demonstration. Bits of straw rained onto the table.

Dorcas's hand moved unwillingly toward her own plate. With such rough and fibrous exteriors, Dorcas wasn't sure whether her friend had actually made the biscuits out of shredded wheat breakfast cereal or whether the resemblance was merely an unfortunate coincidence. A fond and tender smile crept onto her face. Dorcas hastily pressed it back and addressed Pomona Sprout, her manner even more brusque than usual.

"You're aware of the Potters' murders."

A look of horror crossed Sprout's dirt-smudged face. "Of course! Minerva can hardly even teach. She's been up all night worrying herself to death about that poor baby."

"I requested your disciplinary records from the Headmaster." Dorcas tapped the table with her wand, making the crumbs jump in unison. A scroll popped into her ready hands. "You gave James Potter a great many detentions over the years."

Sprout prickled and drew in a pouting lip. "I was expecting tea, not an interrogation, Madam Meadowes. Potter had very little respect for school property and even less for the well-being of his fellow students."

"Would you say that you and James Potter had a proper working relationship as teacher and student?"

Professor Sprout bristled. "Of course!"

"It says here that you were cited by Professor Dumbledore on the twelfth of April, 1975, for threatening to feed Potter, Black, and Pettigrew to a Brobdingnagian Pitcher Plant..."

Hagrid's cheeks went pink with suppressed mirth. He quickly stuffed half a biscuit in his mouth to keep himself from laughing and then coughed on the brittle crumbs. Dorcas reached up to swat him on the back. "Are you all right?"

Hagrid cleared his throat and nodded. He swigged a gulp of tea and waved for Dorcas to go on.

"This is extremely serious. If charges had been brought by the parents, your actions could be considered criminal threatening and grounds for dismissal. Dumbledore went very easy on you."

"You didn't know those boys, Madam Meadowes. They would have pushed anyone to their limit."

"I am quite well-acquainted with Sirius Black," said Dorcas crisply. "You claim no ill will against the victims, Professor Sprout?"

"Of course, none at all. James was a handful but he wasn't a bad person. Lily Evans was a treasure." Sprout sniffled. "Lily had such a deft hand with Potions, but I never managed to get her quite as motivated in Herbology. She only pulled an S in her O.W.L. examination... I could tell she longed to be learning real magic. Herbology isn't glamorous." Pomona lifted her heavy, rough-sided mug in both hands and let the steam warm her face. She took a generous sip and set it back down with unsteady hands. The mug wobbled and nearly tipped over; Dorcas swiftly lifted her wand to steady the liquid. The Professor nodded stiffly in thanks.

"Do try a biscuit," said Dorcas lightly. Pomona nibbled, made an incredulous face, and immediately drained half her mug to choke down the pieces.

"Did Severus Snape show a particular interest in your course?"

"Mostly in growing potion ingredients: I can understand what an aspiring Dark wizard would want with those," Professor Sprout said with a righteous sniff. She swirled the last bit of cooling tea around the bottom of her mug. Gazing into the tiny whirlpool, the hard corners of her eyes gradually relaxed. "Snape asked me once about Muggle homeopathy. I haven't any idea why he wanted to know, but I gave him some papers from an old friend, Myra Spring."

"Tell me all about it," said Dorcas carefully. "Might I borrow a quill and some ink, please, Hagrid?"

Looking back and forth between the two women, the man's black eyes narrowed under heavy, beetled brows. Dorcas gave him a warning look as she accepted the eagle quill and prepared to write.

"Dear Myra! We were girls together in Budleigh Babberton. What a disappointment when she didn't come to Hogwarts, she would have been in my year, but I saw her in the holidays." Pomona stirred her teacup. "When we were fourteen, she went to study with a teacher in Wales... an old hermit witch, I can't recall her name. Myra said she was a Druid."

"Truly?"

"It certainly sounded like it to me. Speaking to trees, doing the chores by hand. I lost touch with Myra after I left Hogwarts... her mum said she'd gone to America with her teacher. Fancy that, a pair of Druids in the desert Southwest. Oh, I do miss Myra, I'd love to hear all the stories." Professor Sprout stirred her tea with a soft, nostalgic look in her eyes.

Dorcas drew Professor Sprout back into the present day. "Pomona, I need to know more. The Potters' boy is in terrible danger, and you're the only one who can help me. Can you tell me more about Myra and Severus?"

The soft look on Sprout's face drained away like sand from the bottom of an hourglass, replaced with consternation. "Severus came to me in his final term, just after N.E.W.T.s were over. I thought... we all thought that Severus was headed for trouble, but he asked me for a letter of introduction. It was like pulling teeth, asking for my help."

"He wanted you to introduce him to Myra Spring?"

"Yes. We all heard that Dumbledore had rejected him when he asked about getting the Potions chair after graduation. Slughorn was planning to retire that spring, but he put it off. Snape said he wanted experience outside Hogwarts to make himself a better candidate for the job, and Myra is a master." Pomona reached unexpectedly for Dorcas's hand and grabbed it tightly. "I'm sure he went to Myra's that summer. Absolutely sure of it. Myra never said anything specific to me, but she wrote me that summer. She mentioned she had taken on an apprentice and that her daughter was quite taken with him."

Dorcas flashed a hopeful look toward Hagrid, but the stony expression on his broad face filled her with dismay. "Where does Myra live?" Dorcas pressed.

Pomona waved vaguely with one dirt-smeared hand. "North Wales - Snowdonia."

Dorcas fumbled with Rubeus's quill, which didn't seem to want to pick up any ink. "Anything more specific?"

The teacher named a village. "You can't Owl her; she insists on Muggle post and picks it up in the village. She doesn't use magic for everyday business. Her home is concealed on a ridge near a ravine. She described some of the warding spells once, but I never visited."

"I'm grateful for your assistance, Professor Sprout. I'll be sure to tell Professor Dumbledore how much you've helped the Order." Sprout swelled with pride as she turned to Hagrid, but his broad face remained set with suspicion. "It's snowing even harder now. Why don't you Floo back to the castle?"

As Professor Sprout departed, Dorcas grasped her wand in her robe pocket. A single mental whisper ensured Sprout would not remember anything but tea and biscuits. She turned to Hagrid with excitement. "We've got to find Myra Spring at once! Where's Black gotten to?"

Her friend hunched forward in the ladder-backed kitchen chair next to hers, staring down at his hands folded on the table. He refused to meet her eyes. "You used me, Dorcas."

"What?"

His face was bright magenta with misery. "Never been more than a means to an end, have I? And all this time, I thought... well, I'm a buggered old fool, that's what I am."

Dorcas's voice constricted. "Rubeus, please!"

He rubbed his forehead hard with one rough palm. "I thought yeh said Scrimgeour took you off the case." Dorcas couldn't speak. "What yeh did to poor Pomona was completely illegal. I shoulda stopped yeh. Don't think I didn't see that last little twitch of yer wand while the poor lady was foolin' around with the Floo powder."

"I am off the case." Dorcas removed her silver, cat-eyed spectacles and pinched the bridge of her nose, hoping to physically keep her tears at bay. "Dumbledore suspects a leak or possibly even a traitor. That's why I interviewed her here instead of at the castle."

"Interviewed," grumbled Hagrid. "So that's what yeh call it. If Dumbledore catches you using Veritaserum like that, he won't let it slide."

"If the Death Eaters find Harry before we do..."

"I can't be involved in this, Dorcas. Yeh haven't got the law on yer side."

Dorcas exploded. "What do I care for the damned law? A child's life is at stake! Harry Potter didn't do anything wrong, the poor thing. He had a prophecy stuck to him like fly paper before he was even born."

The huge man grasped her upper arm. "Even if you get sent to Azkaban?" His hand reached from from her elbow nearly to her shoulder. The sheer power of his grasp overwhelmed her. Sudden fear snaked into her heart, throttling her like a python.

"Let me go at once!"

Rubeus's clenched hand opened. Dorcas brought her palm up to massage the sore muscle. "If you're not coming, I'll take Black with me instead."

His bitter laugh surprised her. "Is that supposed to be a threat?"

"Sirius knows Lily very well, and he knows Snape too. They've dueled before. Sirius should have a handle on him if Albus is wrong and it comes to a fight." Rubeus crossed his arms tightly over his barrel chest. "You're really not coming."

"No, I'm not."

"Not even for Harry's sake?"

Hagrid's face twisted. "I'm not gonna be associated with this, Dorcas. It's wrong. You're gonna have to think about whose side yer really on."

Dorcas slithered down from the tall chair, tears starting in her eyes. She cast one more pleading look at her oldest friend, but he squared his shoulders away from her. Dorcas pulled her cloak down from the door and ran down the hill in the swirling snow, Disapparating with a crack like the world breaking in two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you're enjoying the story. I made a few content updates to this chapter, but not too many.
> 
> Would love to hear from readers! Hagrid's cookies are not on offer, I don't want to choke anyone ;)


	18. Stupefy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: The Potterverse belongs to J.K. Rowling and her publishers and license holders worldwide. No prejudice against Muggles or the Welsh should be implied.
> 
> (...I'd kind of like to put that disclaimer on the whole story, but then I'd have to add house-elves, half-giants, Hufflepuffs, the French, and Rabastan Lestrange's teeth for accuracy's sake.)
> 
> Special thanks go out to pookha, Gryffin_Duck, and padfoot4ever from The Golden Snitches (TGS) and HPFF for technical assistance with Polyjuice Potion! The "memory net" charm is an invention of the author.
> 
> This is the messiest chapter yet in terms of violence. A cleaned-up version appears elsewhere online; I I can direct you if you'd rather read that one. (PM me any time!)

Wind slashed down from the exposed flanks of the great mountain. Scrabbled peaks covered with early snow lay hidden in the mists above steep valley walls. Beech leaves spiraled one by one to the main street. Beneath a stone bridge, a shallow river frothed in wide rapids. A television set leaked tinny laughter through a cracked-open pub window.

Lucius Malfoy turned his body into the sharp gust, shielding his wife. Their Muggle disguises were useless against the weather. Bellatrix pulled a sable cloak up around her florid face and smiled. "Give me the potion, Cissy. I will prepare our decoys."

Lucius longed to put his wife's sister in her place. Bellatrix's mistakes had already come at a dear price; were Lord Voldemort to declare Lucius's family more of a liability than an asset, young Draco would be at his easy disposal. Everything depended on locating the son of Lily Potter, the unlucky child of prophecy. Narcissa soothed her husband by stroking her gloved fingers over the back of his cold hand. Again Lucius blessed his father's wisdom in choosing the younger of the Black sisters for his bride.

Price and Sons stood at the near end of the bridge, set apart from the village center. Fiery-colored autumn boughs stood in window boxes. A hand-painted placard advertised fresh milk and eggs.

Narcissa's pale fingers sank into the fur of Bellatrix's cloak. "Bella, I can't let you go in there alone!"

Bellatrix laughed warmly. "If you insist. I'd hate to leave you out here unprotected." She cast a taunting smile back at Lucius as the Black sisters strolled up a short flight of stone steps and into the shop.

The Dark Lord's source inside Hogwarts gave detailed information on Snape's flight. Lucius dared not voice his suspicion at the ease of gaining such intelligence. Snape had once studied with the reclusive herbalist and potioneer, Myra Spring, who lived in the nearby mountains with her daughter. Several arcane layers of protection warded the Spring home. To gain entry, Lucius would have to penetrate an unknown barrier of spells.

Though undoubtedly talented, Spring was a known Muggle-lover. Surely someone in the village had enough contact with the Druid for Lucius to be able to extract her precise location.

Too late, Lucius caught a reek of sheep dung and pipe tobacco. A Muggle shepherd in a roughly knit sweater shambled up beside him. He said something in Welsh and smiled toothlessly. Lucius concentrated on the wand tucked inside his sleeve. _Confundus. Obliviate._

The old man's blue eyes widened and he loped away, chattering to no one. Lucius cast a belated Muggle-Repelling Charm, and a crackling feeling ran through the air and shivered into the low cloud cover overhead. Lucius cursed himself for neglecting it before, and doubly cursed Bellatrix for throwing him off balance.

Bellatrix's feral snarl erupted from the open door of the greengrocer's shop. A woman's scream shattered into multiphonics of rage and torment.

" _Imperio!_ "

Lucius pelted up the stairs and into the shop, praying all had gone as planned. The old shopkeeper lay prone on the wooden floor. Pressed white apron strings trailed into a spreading pool of blood. Bellatrix circled the shopkeeper's wife like a dance partner, light-footed and sure. Her walnut wand trailed softly around her victim's shoulders. "You will be silent unless spoken to. You will tell the absolute and complete truth at all times, or you'll be as dead as your husband. What is your name?"

The shopkeeper's wife stared straight ahead. Tears ran forgotten down her anesthetized face. "Sarah Price."

"And your husband's name?"

"Llewelyn."

Narcissa pressed close to her sister's shoulder, her wand trained on the hostage but trembling visibly with each beat of her heart. "Is anyone else at home? Any assistants in the shop?"

"No." The Muggle's dull hazel eyes flashed with sudden awareness, and her entire body jerked as if awakened from a dream. "Sweet Jesus! You've killed him!"

" _Stupefy!_ " Lucius cried. Slipping in her husband's blood, the Muggle fell sideways to the floor. With his wand still raised, Lucius whirled to face his sister-in-law. "You stupid woman! We needed them both alive!"

Bellatrix laughed with sensual delight. Lucius felt sick. Even he knew that power and rage were potent aphrodisiacs for Bellatrix Lestrange. Pity that Rodolphus had never understood her, or they might have enjoyed a far more harmonious partnership. The Dark Lord certainly understood Bellatrix; he played all their weaknesses like a god.

"Come, Malfoy, no sniveling. He's not quite dead." Bella drew a silver dagger from her cloak and sawed off a hank of Llew Price's salt-and-pepper hair. Twirling the trophy in her hand, she took no notice of the ragged chunk of scalp still attached. Bellatrix raised her wand once more. Silent green lightning flashed across Lucius's retina. Narcissa flinched and covered her eyes.

In the aftermath of the Killing Curse the room was suddenly darker. Bellatrix prodded the body with her booted toe. "There. We should have plenty of hair."

On the floor, Sarah Price was awake, her immobilized face turned toward the charnel scene. Only her eyes betrayed the living presence in her mind. " _Imperio,_ " said Narcissa intensely. A visceral thrill ran through Lucius's body at the sound of his gentle wife performing an Unforgivable Curse. God, he was just as sick as Bellatrix.

Narcissa knelt beside their victim; her cheap Muggle coat draped into a puddle of blood. "Mrs. Price, go into the back room and lie down while we clean up this mess. Mr. Price will be with you soon, I promise." Lucius looked up sharply at his wife's blatant lies. Pity and despair shone on her fine features.

"Llew," said Mrs. Price in a dull voice, shuffling into the storeroom. Narcissa followed her and pulled the checked green-and-white curtain across the open doorway.

Working wordlessly, Lucius disposed of the shopkeeper's corpse and returned the shop to order. Blood seeped into the gaps between the ancient floorboards. Narcissa tried a variety of charms on the stain before she was satisfied. "This has to be worth it," she murmured.

Lucius knew what she meant. Muggle casualties were nothing compared with young Draco's life. Lucius left a jumble of packaged chocolate biscuits on the shelf and paused behind Narcissa. He kissed the nape of her neck: so fair, with wisps of silver-blonde hair drooping down from a tight chignon.

Bellatrix elbowed her way between husband and wife. She thrust a crystal vial in her sister's face. "You'll be the woman, since you seem so fond of her. I will take the shopkeeper."

"Lucius, I thought you were going to take the Polyjuice." Brave Narcissa, making her only objection.

"Darling, I'll have to stay out of sight to use the memory net. I'll watch over the Muggle and make sure she stays Imperiused this time."

Bellatrix swore at him and gulped the Polyjuice.

 

Downstairs in the greengrocer's shop, Muggles came and went, chattering in Welsh. The villagers bought fat sacks of oats for porridge, spent hours dissecting sporting news and local politics, and scolded their impertinent children.

On the third day of Lucius's vigil, the alternating snow and rain finally dribbled to an end. Men came out to scrape the icy walks with metal shovels, the noise grating in the center of Lucius's skull. He closed and locked the apartment door by hand, fiddling with the old brass key.

Sarah Price drowsed on the settee in the front room. The Muggle fought the Imperius curse with far more vigor than Lucius thought possible; he was forced to sedate her at intervals. Though Narcissa prompted her to eat and change her clothes daily, the prisoner showed signs of neglect. Steel-grey hair fell in blood-caked snarls over her bruised cheek. Still, Sarah Price was lucky to be alive. Bellatrix pressed strongly for the Muggle's disposal.

Lucius cleared his mind and prepared to cast the intricate memory net. The Dark Lord himself created the series of spells and taught them to a select handful of his followers. His faithful elm wand turned hot and then cold in his right hand, shivering with contained energy as Lucius recited the first incantation. He released the spell with a light touch.

A shining white sphere formed at the tip of his wand: a thing of unsullied beauty, completely out of place in the shabby Muggle dwelling. Expanding slowly, it slipped through the timbered ceiling and up through the slate roof of the greengrocer's shop, into the endlessly cloudy sky.

Lucius pulled his awareness closer to the ground with some measure of regret. Muggle minds crawled along the ground like worms. Lucius hated to touch them, even briefly. Days of trolling the collective psyche of the villagers had gained him mostly trivia; he did not care whose prospects in football were greater, and he most certainly did not care what the little boy in the house next door wanted for Christmas. At least his mental efforts revealed clear pictures of the Druid and her daughter.

Tiny and oblong with flyaway grey hair, Myra wore cast-off clothes taken in barter for headache powders and potted seedlings. Her daughter Melora maintained an air of pride even while peddling eggs door to door. Melora's pale bronze hair and slim youthful body featured in so many young male daydreams, it would be simple to detect her if she passed within range.

A quiet knock came at the kitchen door. The memory net shredded, falling to pieces over the village street. Narcissa entered the apartment and grimaced as Sarah Price's wrinkles pulled taut on her delicate cheekbones.

"Darling, I'm sorry to disturb you. I've brought you some lunch."

"Not sandwiches?"

Narcissa's reply was tart. "Would you rather the tinned oysters again?" Lucius shook his head with mute apology. The long stakeout had eroded his manners most grievously. Narcissa settled on the sofa and laid two plates on the wobbly painted table, slicing the sandwiches into neat quarters. "A woman came collecting donations for the amateur theatrical society. I barely escaped to bring you a meal at all."

Lucius reached up to stroke a loose strand of hair behind Narcissa's ear. "If only they knew what a marvelous actress you are! I haven't caught a hint of suspicion in the customers. Where did you learn to change Muggle money?"

Narcissa lowered her lashes. "A lady must keep some secrets. Have you found anything yet today?"

"Not yet." Lucius watched his kerchief- and apron-clad wife nibble at the rough meal, a pearl in a setting of tarnished brass. He could not bring himself to tell her what he feared. He had failed to find Severus Snape. Perhaps fleeing with Draco was the only course left to them. Let Bellatrix deal with the consequences of her actions.

The kitchen door banged open once more. "Useless Muggles." Bellatrix's hourly dose of Polyjuice had yet to wear off. She tore the ties of the shopkeeper's white apron over his combed-over grey head and flung it carelessly to the floor. "When the Dark Lord triumphs at last, they will no longer tamper with what they do not understand."

Lucius finished his sandwich and pushed the plate forward on the table. "Muggles are an unobservant lot. They haven't even noticed anything wrong with their greengrocers."

Narcissa concealed a giggle behind her graceful hand. "I could almost feel sorry for them. It's terribly simple to Confund a Muggle: a child could do it. Dear Bella, swearing at them in French!"

"The two of you disgust me: acting like you're playing house while Myra Spring still has the Potter boy!" Spittle flew from Llew Price's thin lips as Bellatrix raved. Narcissa tried to calm her, but Bellatrix threw her plate at her sister, scattering bread and meat on the floor.

A moan from the settee brought Lucius to his feet. The real Sarah Price struggled to break the magical bonds on her spirit. Lucius rose to take a handful of valerian from the sack on the kitchen sideboard.

Passing the wavering glass window overlooking the street, Lucius caught sight of a bobbing flicker of red-gold emerging from the switchback trail down the mountain. Tramping gaily along the streamside path, the girl was carefree and unguarded. She carried a large basket over one arm, moving lightly despite the mud on her boots and men's trousers.

"The Potter woman?" Narcissa asked. Bellatrix's wildness shone bright in the dead shopkeeper's face. The foxes Lucius caught in his peacock run wore the same avid expression, open hatred and hunger plain in their eyes.

"No, darling. It's the Druid's girl, Melora Spring. Tonight, the Dark Lord will have his due."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. I had a terrible day today and this chapter can be cathartic when one is feeling somewhat helpless and would like to smash some things. I hope I brought some ghoulish fun for my Slytherin friends. (I'm a Hufflepuff by all tests so far. If I'm anyone in this story, I'm Dorcas... Though often she slides toward Slytherin too!)
> 
> I will try not to let the cliffhanger sit for long 


	19. Evanesco

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With a million thanks to my friend tydemans from HPFF / TGS for the delightfully wicked inspiration.

Harry Potter strained to stand on tiptoe at the kitchen window. A doe and fawn minced softly across the deep carpet of fallen pine needles, browsing on the tender twigs framing the window. Their black noses nearly touched the glass. Harry ran to Severus's chair and grabbed his thigh, pulling to show his friend his discovery. "See! See!"

"Don't frighten them. I'm coming." Severus crept to the window behind the eager toddler. "As slow as you can. That's it. Breathe quietly."

Lily squinted out between the spelled rowan branches: invisible from within, impenetrable from without. "Harry can't scare them from inside the wards."

Severus put a finger to his lips. The doe's narrow head swung around and she bounded into the bracken with her spotted fawn trailing after her. Harry began to cry. To Lily's astonishment, Severus lifted him up. The little boy howled into his shoulder, wetting his work robes with angry tears.

"It's all right. You were very quiet. It could have been a fox." Lily crossed her arms and glared at him. Severus smirked. "It's never too early for a little training in stealth."

Myra tiptoed toward the window with desperate hope in her face and in the tense carriage of her plump body. "Was that Melora? She should be home by now."

"It was just a couple of deer. I'm sorry."

Myra slumped visibly at Lily's words. Her bustle and energy were greatly diminished from the vital, birdlike woman Lily first met when they fled from Voldemort. Trailing an empty burlap sack behind her, Myra shuffled toward the greenhouse in defeat. The blue door closed with hardly a sound.

Severus and the three witches debated late into the night over their urgent need for food. Three extra people quickly strained Myra and Melora's winter reserves. Lily thought Myra foolish not to use the powers at hand. With her strict policy not to Summon food from elsewhere, or even to multiply or Transfigure it from something else, they would shortly go hungry. Myra took a selfless risk in sending Melora to the village alone, but they could not chance Lily or Severus accompanying her. As Melora herself argued, it was certain they were being tracked.

Toting a basket of fresh eggs and vegetables from the greenhouse in barter, Melora had departed for the village just after dawn. Her mother allowed Lily to teach her how to cast a Patronus message when she started home but no word had come.

Lily lifted and plunged the heavy cast-iron lever on the hand pump. Cold water cascaded over her hand. As the long days of confinement in Myra's cabin passed by, she found herself returning to life. The pain of losing James resided under a scab lightly knit together. It would burst open sooner or later but the time being, it was enough to feel any kind of normality, whether or not it was false at the heart.

Lily rinsed the last clean plate and wiped it with a pale yellow tea towel. At the kitchen table Severus slouched over his reading, deep in Myra's notes on the Druid magic she had nurtured and practiced over the years. His oily hair drooped nearly onto the table, obscuring his face as he stooped closer to study a penciled diagram.

Watching him, Lily felt a pang of dislocation. Her physical recovery more or less complete, she kept as busy as she could with Harry and household chores. James and Peter were dead: Sirius and Remus heaven knew where. Myra, Melora, and Severus replaced them, a sudden recasting of her life with new actors.

Only Harry was a constant in this limbo between the way things were supposed to be and the way they were. Her son was too small to comprehend the seismic change in his life. Not for the first time, Lily wished Harry could speak more than a few syllables. She longed to hear him say that he understood his father was gone. She longed to tell him how sorry she was. Grief roared out of the crack in her soul.

Harry's laughter distracted her. On the floor near Severus's stocking feet, Harry played with a crumpled scrap of parchment. The little boy crushed the ball in his hands and giggled to see it spring back into shape each time.

Severus pushed the runic manuscript aside. "Lily, when will you finally see sense? Take him and get out of here while you can. They'll be here soon, we all know it."

Lily glanced quickly toward the closed door, making sure Myra had gone all the way back into the greenhouse.

"Myra healed us; she sheltered us. She might well have sent Melora to her death for us. How could I leave her now?"

"Gryffindors." Severus jammed the stopper back into a jar of black ink. "Incorrigible." Lily swatted at him with the damp towel. Severus's mouth twitched sideways.

As Severus recovered his strength, Lily felt moments of the easy back-and-forth they had enjoyed as children. After their fifth year at Hogwarts, she never made another best friend. Experience taught her to keep her inner life hidden and to present a façade to the world. She became friendly with Remus as her co-prefect, leading her to cross paths with James, Sirius, and Peter more often than she would have liked.

Mary Macdonald and Becky Whitetree were the closest she had come to real girlfriends. She kept the girls at arm's length as well, listening more than she talked and never admitting them into her closest confidence. A twist of nausea knifed through her gut at the memory of Becky on the limestone floor, crushed to death by Lily's spell. Nothing was as it seemed.

Lily's friendly impartiality led her to be named Head Girl in her seventh year. In a way, she had Severus to thank for it all. Sometimes Lily joked that she never would have given James the time of day if they hadn't been thrown together so much as Head Girl and Boy. Her love for James blossomed from close association, beginning as rivalry and mellowing to companionship. So transparent, so energetic and forthright; how could Lily go on without him?

"…Hogwarts. Tell him everything. You can Apparate just outside the wards."

"What?"

Severus repeated himself precisely as if reprimanding an inattentive student. "I said you should take the boy to Hogwarts. Tell Dumbledore everything. It's the only place in Britain you could possibly be safe."

Surprised by his sudden reversal of opinion, Lily sat down heavily in the kitchen chair beside him. Severus's fingers contracted, trying to wipe the sweat from his palms. His hand covered hers and his ink-spattered thumb moved slowly over her own, bringing Lily a painful memory of the night by the dying fire. She had come so close to letting the emptiness rule her, letting her traitorous body's demands for warmth and comfort drive her into Severus's all-too-willing arms.

"Lily, take him and go before I try to stop you."

A bleak chuckle escaped her. "Slytherins don't do self-sacrifice very well."

"No, we delegate that to the Gryffindors."

Lily rose from her chair and stood behind him. The kitchen clock ticked once, twice, three times, with the full, rounded sound of an old mechanism. The minute hand moved forward with a halting whirr and a click as it settled into place.

"Come with us."

"Lily, I was made for this fight."

"You don't have to redeem yourself for my sake."

"Tell Dumbledore I loved you. Tell him I'm sorry I failed."

"You loved me?"

"Haven't you always known that?"

Lily sank to her knees. Her arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders, and the pulse in his neck beat a frantic accelerando against her cheek. Yes, she had always known that, ever since she was ten years old. The meaning of love had changed so many times since then, beginning with two lonely children relying on one another for understanding, and ending…

Severus turned in his chair and grasped either side of her waist, gentle but urgent, as if she were a fragile thing which must be captured or lost.

Lily couldn't look at his face. All these years, she had worked so hard to convince herself she had no warmth left for Severus Snape. (She had gone so far as falling in love with his worst enemy – the most calculated way to damage him if she had done it consciously.) The sudden knowledge that she did, in fact, care very deeply for him came down on her in cold sheets of rain, soaking every part of her. It was too late now; it had always been too late.

"Please take care of yourself, Severus. Promise me you will."

"The Dark Lord does not deal kindly with those who betray his trust." Lily felt his lips press the top of her head, soft and stealthy as if he believed she might not notice in her overwrought state. "Take care of Harry."

Lily squeezed her eyes closed and nodded as he released her. Harry clambered to his mother, grabbing the legs of her blue jeans. She redirected Harry's curious fingers from poking up her nose and in her ears. His small hand wiped across her cheek and came away wet.

"Mama?"

Lily pressed Harry's palm against her face to cover her tears. "I should say goodbye to Myra – "

"I'll take care of everything."

"If you make it –"

"I'll come back to Hogwarts."

 

Lily dressed Harry in the olive-striped jumper and hat Myra had once knitted for her small daughter. Severus longed to stop her, but his nagging sense that something was coming had turned to a compulsion. The skin burned and tingled around the mark blazoned into his left arm. Even Myra's clever wards could not completely sever him from the darkness.

Lily opened the heavy oak door, her child bouncing on her hip with his excitement to be outside. Shafts of autumn sunshine filtered through the leafless branches, turning her hair to luminescent ruby. She glanced back over her shoulder as quickly as the doe at the window, as shining and graceful as her Patronus: his own as well. The knowledge felt like the Dark Mark, serpent and skull seared into his flesh.

Lily raised a hand in farewell. Without bidding, Severus remembered the morning in their seventh year when she cornered him in the library. They hadn't spoken in nearly a year, but everyone knew she and Potter were snogging in the corridors every chance they got. Severus cast a sly glance at the badge pinned to Lily's robes, the words "Head Girl" shining in gilded brass under the Hogwarts crest.

_"Snape, I heard what you're planning to do after N.E.W.T.s are over."_

_He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms against his chest, turning an unconcerned smirk upon the irate girl. "Please, Evans. Are you going to give me a detention?"_

_Lily dismissed his sarcasm. "You don't have to do this. You have a choice. Since when did you care what others think?"_

I care. I care what you think. _"This is what I am."_

_"Maybe, but that's not all you are. I know you're braver than that."_

Lily's heated words led him to delay his initiation. Eventually, they took him to Professor Sprout's office, then to Myra's cottage. At the end of his year in Wales, he was ready to make amends until he found the wedding announcement in the back of the Daily Prophet. Lily's radiant smile, the folds of her white lace veil tossed behind her shoulders, and the smug anticipation leaking from every pore of Potter's black-and-white face smashed his feeble-minded need to reconcile.

That very night, he offered himself to the Dark Lord. He remembered Becky Whitetree's lips and arms, the reflection of the Dark Mark overhead shining in her pale eyes as she led him into the sheltered grove behind Malfoy Manor, tugging at his robes with greedy hands.

* * *

 

"Melora!" gasped Lily. "Severus! Myra! She's back!"

Crossing the forest clearing with slow and measured steps came Melora Spring. Her Muggle work clothes were creased and dirty as if she might have taken a fall. The basket lay lightly across her forearm. _It should be heavier,_ Severus registered. Lily took a single step toward the girl in welcome. Harry crowed happily in her arms.

"Lily, get back inside!" Severus shouted, charging forward. "Melora! What were your mother's last words to you this morning?"

Melora stared at the rowan wand aimed at her heart. Incomprehension showed plainly on her pretty, freckled face. In her basket, something vibrated under a checked red-and-white cloth. A sooty black feather drifted from the lip of the basket and swirled upward, a cyclone in reverse. The soft edges became the wild raven curls of Bellatrix Lestrange.

Bellatrix laughed aloud at the sight of Harry Potter clinging to his mother's side. "Severus, you've been a very naughty boy." Pulling up her sable sleeve, she pressed her palm against the Dark Mark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double cliffhanger-- oops-- ;)
> 
> Hope you enjoy! I am not ashamed to say I needed tissues writing this chapter. (I wrote it at about the time Deathly Hallows: Part 2 was released. More Snape/Lily feels than I could handle...)


	20. Petrificus Totalus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With gratitude to my wonderful husband who beta-read this chapter for me and helped it to come together.

A child's terrified scream rent the air. Dorcas grabbed Sirius's shoulders and forced him down to his knees in the fallen oak leaves.

"Harry!" he shouted, twisting to break away from her.

"Wait! We can't just charge up there, we have to have a plan!"

A mad laugh erupted from the top of the ridge. "Bellatrix!" Sirius pelted up the hill but his foot dropped suddenly out from under him. His ankle was caught in a burrow at the base of a massive oak tree.

 _"Impedimenta!"_ Dorcas's spell seized his awkward fall in slow motion.

"Let me go!" Sirius struggled. "If you don't think you can take Bellatrix, call somebody for help, but I am pretty damned sure I can!"

Dorcas flicked her wand. Sirius tumbled to the ground, knocking his forehead on a tree root the breadth of his thigh. "Sirius, there's nobody to call."

He rubbed his sore head. "What?"

"I've gone rogue, Sirius. I'm working alone."

Sirius couldn't process her words. "You're an Auror, right?" He asked with a sarcastic drawl, "How does that work, exactly?"

"Ex-Auror. Scrimgeour sacked me this morning for countermanding orders. Dumbledore told me not to go after Harry… I'm here on my own."

Behind the loss of Dorcas's position and her clash with Dumbledore, Sirius sensed a deeper pain. The sounds of the battle escalating at the top of the ridge crowded out all sympathy for his friend.

"What the fuck have you gotten us into, Dorcas? Lily and Harry are going to die up there!"

"We're not going to fight alone."

"You mean Snivellus?"

Dorcas returned Sirius's incredulous stare with certitude. Her silver cat-eyed spectacles were askew and the severe bun in her graying hair had come half-unwound. She looked like she'd been through hell and back.

"I hope you're right, Dorcas. My godson's life depends on it. If you're wrong, you'll be the first one I come for."

Dorcas bowed her head in acknowledgement. Sirius raised his wand and turned on one heel. The world constricted around him, stifling his breath and twirling into a stretched spiral like caramel taffy spun from the end of a child's finger. Oak trunks and gnarled branches swirled into a jumbled mass, then swelled into a globe bursting painfully from the center of his heart.

Sirius and Dorcas Apparated at the edge of the forest clearing. Sirius panted to clear the restricted feeling from his chest. Bellatrix capered close to Snape, dodging a poorly aimed curse. Snape retreated, crouching in front of Lily and Harry like a fighting crab.

Sirius had only half a heartbeat for relief and joy to flood through him at the sight of mother and child in one piece before Harry shrieked in anger. The small boy flailed in Lily's arms, struggling to break her desperate clasp. Harry flung his head backward and caught his mother in the mouth. Blood ran down her chin from a bitten lip.

"Sirius!" Lily screamed.

"Hang on! I'm coming!" Sirius cast a hurried Shield Charm in her direction. To his frustration, it bounced off a glowing hemisphere already in place and ricocheted upward, dissipating in a pale azure halo above the forest clearing.

"Oh, look, Potter! It's your knight in shining armor!" cried Bellatrix with bubbly delight. Sirius's hated cousin turned her wand on Lily. Before either Sirius or Snape could react, a white fireball roared into the rowan hedge. Twigs and branches exploded in a rain of wooden shrapnel. Lily clapped her wand hand over Harry's vulnerable eyes. Splinters slipped down the outside of her Shield Charm and fell harmlessly to the ground. The hedge behind Lily held firm, glowing softly with a pale peach radiance. Harry's cries escalated to hysteria.

Sirius felt madness creeping up on him. The sight of his beloved godson in mortal peril made him come unglued. Spittle flew from the corners of his lips as he roared at Bellatrix. "Get away from her!"

"So possessive, cousin!" Bellatrix's teasing grin twisted her beautiful face. "I wouldn't think that you of all people would make a move on dear Mrs. Potter so soon. Your best friend's hardly a fortnight in the grave. I wonder whether the worms - "

"Shut up!"

"Sirius!" Dorcas said with sharp command in her voice. "Don't let her get to you!"

"Don't let her get to you!" mocked Bellatrix. "Please, old woman, I taught that brat half the curses he knows. Who are you, anyway?"

Dorcas returned Bellatrix's dismissal with a Stinging Hex. The younger woman swatted it away as easily as a mosquito. "You may not know me, but your _Master_ surely does." Dorcas imbued the word 'Master' with the same loathing with which Bellatrix had filled 'cousin.'

"That's what they all say, right before he kills them." Bellatrix levitated away from Dorcas's Disarming spell. Her sable cloak rippled gracefully as she returned to ground.

"I know you rather better than you realize, Lestrange. You're never sent out alone because your Master thinks you're unreliable. _Homenum revelio_!"

Narcissa Malfoy exploded out of the shattered remains of a woven grocery basket. Egg yolk and shells spattered the lower half of her skirt. A fraction of a second later, Lucius Malfoy sprang up beside her, his wand at the ready. Desperation and fatigue marked his aristocratic face.

Sirius swore and jumped backward. Against both Bellatrix and Malfoy, they really were in deep shit.

Narcissa shrank behind her husband, her pale eyes nervously tracking the whimpering baby in Lily's arms. Muggle clothing looked so strange on Narcissa, diminishing her strong family resemblance; Sirius thought fleetingly that it would be easier to kill her ifvsince she didn't look so much like his mother.

"Snape," said Malfoy unctuously as he stepped forward, "What a fine pickle you've gotten yourself into."

Snape staggered to confront the Malfoys. Fear and concern widened Lily's grass-green eyes as she clutched Harry to her chest. Even to Sirius, Snape looked awful. The simple curses and hexes he'd cast at Bellatrix were feeble at best. If Dorcas really planned to rely so heavily on Snape's help, she'd better have another plan up her sleeve.

Lucius raised his wand toward Lily and the baby. Lily wrapped Harry even tighter in her arms. Blood from her bitten lip trickled into his soft black hair.

"Don't you dare go near her, Malfoy!" Snape rasped out.

Bellatrix giggled. "Lucky Mudblood! You should have offed that boring four-eyes of a husband years ago. Snape and Black fighting over you: what delicious possibilities!"

Lily's dirt-smudged face hardened with fury. "You will not insult James in front of our son." Lily's Shield Charm wavered as her concentration diminished.

Bellatrix gloated. "Stupid little Gryffindor. It's so simple to push your buttons. _Petrificus totalus!_ "

"Watch out!" Sirius hollered.

Lily had no time to scream before her legs locked and she toppled to the ground. With her last moment of free will before the curse seized control of her body, she shifted her weight so she would fall on her back. Harry landed safely, his fall cushioned by his mother's body. Only Lily's grass-green eyes staring up into the canopy of trees reflected her terror and agony as Harry pushed himself upright and toddled away.

"Lily!" Snape pelted toward her. Lucius casually Stunned him, flicking his wand sideways without even looking. The ground knocked the breath out of Snape and he fell near Lily in a rumpled puddle of black robes.

Snivellus, you stupid son of a bitch! You should have been able to counter that! Sirius thought, furious and confused. Snape couldn't defend himself, let alone help to save Lily. Things had gone from bad to worse.

"Harry!" Sirius called. Relief and recognition dawned in the baby's eyes, as lambent green as his mother's in the sunset light. He toddled toward Sirius, holding up both hands to be lifted.

Sirius had almost caught Harry when something moved near the edge of the clearing. Sirius realized with a rush of terror that he had overlooked something crucial; shame and anguish at his mistake threatened to overtake him.

A teenaged girl with strawberry-blonde hair stood behind the shattered remains of the grocery basket. She held a slim wand in her right hand, pointing it at the toddling child. This must be Melora Spring.

" _Accio Harry!_ " Melora cast, her voice like a robot in a Muggle moving picture. Sirius lunged to catch his godson but could not reach him in time. Harry flew instantaneously into the girl's arms and landed with a cry of surprise. Melora held him as woodenly as a high chair, but Harry seemed to trust her. He burrowed his face in her disordered strawberry-blonde hair and clutched at her knit jumper.

Agony burst from Sirius's mouth, a shout of pure despair. "Harry!"

"Excellent, Melora." Lucius bowed to the teenager. She stared straight ahead, her pretty face as empty as a mannequin's.

"Imperiused!" hissed Dorcas. Sirius looked back and forth from the immobilized Lily to the captured Harry. Tears streaked down Lily's frozen face and into the leaves and pine needles on the forest floor. Snape lay facedown nearby, still unconscious.

"The Dark Lord will honor your service, Miss Spring. Together, we await the favor of his presence."

At Lucius's side, Bellatrix glowed with anticipation. " _Morsmordre!_ " she caroled, pointing her wand into the clear autumn sky. Sirius's stomach turned at the loving delight in her voice.

The Dark Mark flared above the forest canopy, defiling the clearing below with its dreadful shadow. A ghostly serpent uncoiled from a silently screaming skull and obscured the golden-tinged sky like the greenish clouds before a tornado. From Melora's arms, Harry Potter stared at the apparition with a curious mingling of fear and fascination.

"Lucius, it's too soon!" Narcissa pleaded, tugging at her husband's arm. "Bella, stop! The Muggles will see!"

Beneath the nuclear glow of the Dark Mark, Bellatrix had never been more radiant. Jade-green flickers of light played on her obsidian curls. "Piss on the Muggles," she said in a caressing voice at odds with her flippant words.

Fear showed briefly on Dorcas's drawn face as her eyes searched for his. Sirius began to understand that they had walked right into a trap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No more apologies! Onward!


	21. Finite Incantatem

Swirls of smoke streaked through the oak canopy, puncturing the serpent of the Dark Mark. Sooty sculptured flourishes twined through the floating skull like a Victorian monogram.

"More Death Eaters," Dorcas hissed. "Get in front of Snape. I'll guard Lily and the baby." Sirius hesitated, forgetting for a fraction of a second that he was supposed to be protecting his former enemy. "Now!" she crackled. Sirius edged over and assumed a defensive stance.

Bellatrix gazed lovingly up at her handiwork like a small girl admiring a Christmas tree. "Have I done well, Master?"

Lord Voldemort coalesced out of the column of poisonous black smoke like the effluent from a nightmarish factory. His skeletal arm settled around Bellatrix's sable-cloaked shoulders. Bellatrix's eyes rolled up in her head in transports of ecstasy.

As the other Death Eaters materialized all around them, Narcissa Malfoy could hardly tear herself away from the sight of little Harry struggling in Melora Spring's cursed arms. "Bella!" she pleaded.

"Don't deny Madame Lestrange her reward," said Lord Voldemort as he leaned forward and laid his gray-tinged cheek against Bellatrix's inky curls. Bellatrix panted audibly.

"My Lord," said Lucius Malfoy with a slow, formal bow, "I deliver the Potter boy to you. Melora!" he barked. Melora Spring strode forward with Harry in her arms.

"You've done exceedingly well, Lucius, Bellatrix. And Madame Malfoy, I commend you. Keeping your sister in line is a full-time occupation in itself, is it not?"

Narcissa gave the Dark Lord half a smile and a little curtsy. Sirius retched in the back of his throat, choking back bile. "And Sirius Black! What a delightful surprise. Which of you ladies would prefer to prune the family tree?"

Bellatrix's eyes lit up with unholy joy. Dorcas stepped forward, her manner befitting a commander. "I wouldn't do that, Tom."

Voldemort released Bellatrix with an affectionate pat on the shoulder and left her pouting behind him. "Bella, darling, may I present Auror Inspector Dorcas Meadowes… it's been years since we met in the flesh."

"You haven't changed much, Tom. Pity about the nose, though. I'd have thought you'd have done something about that by now. You always were such a vain little boy."

Voldemort laughed. "I'm so pleased I have the chance to thank you in person before you die."

"Thank me?"

Voldemort strode forward, his long cloak dragging through the thick brown pine needles and oak leaves on the floor of the forest clearing. "I have you to thank for all of this, my old friend Dorcas. The traitor Snape and his Mudblood whore captured, and the child of prophecy delivered to me."

Sirius glanced anxiously at his friend. Dorcas struggled to concentrate through her confusion. "How?"

"I found everything I needed right here… in your dreams." Voldemort extended his clawlike hand and laid his palm on Dorcas's forehead. Sirius was too astonished to cast a Shield Charm between them. "You always thought you were so much smarter than me: fancy Head Girl, Dumbledore's pet.

"You weren't worthy of that office, Meadowes. I've walked in your dreams. I stood beside you as you used Veritaserum on Pomona Sprout. You yourself signed Harry Potter's death warrant.

"Just this morning at dawn, you were longing for the arms of that half-breed imbecile. You're fortunate to be so many decades past childbearing," he said in a collegial tone that belied the deadly insults he spoke. " Such demon spawn would surely kill you."

"I love Rubeus," said Dorcas bravely, though tears threatened behind her cat-eyed spectacles. "You'll never love anyone except yourself."

"That's exactly what's wrong with you... all of you. Love is nothing but a wound, and it festers forever." Lord Voldemort took both of Dorcas's hands. His slitted eyes studied her carefully. "So brave for a half-blood. If it weren't for your filthy Muggle family, you'd have been worthy, perhaps… quite a pity. You've been just as self-serving as any of my best lieutenants. You don't care whom you hurt. You don't care whom you use as long as you achieve your goals." Voldemort's smile turned feline, his lipless mouth curling up at the corners. "As soon as you knew about Myra Spring, I knew. Meadowes, you're the traitor."

Behind Lily's frozen form, the center of the rowan hedge vibrated with peach-colored light. Sirius jumped back, wand held high. A wide stone step projected forward and a hand-hewn door opened. A tiny birdlike woman with rumpled grey hair stepped outside.

"I don't like the sound of my name coming from you."

"You must be Mrs. Spring. I have your tuition to thank for Severus's increased acumen with potions, I suppose. I knew he couldn't have possibly learned all that at Hogwarts." Voldemort made a courtly bow toward Myra. "I didn't think anyone but a true Dark witch would have been able to teach him some of those formulas."

"There is no Light and Dark," said Myra simply. She raised her bare palm toward Lily. The redhead rolled over onto her side, gasping with freedom. Lily crawled slowly toward Melora and Harry. Myra lifted her other palm toward where Snape lay dead to the world. Sirius's old enemy gasped awake, inhaling a layer of pine needles from the forest floor and coughing painfully.

"When you separate magic into Light and Dark, you make human assumptions about the natural world. When you divide it, when you label it; you can't reach it all. There's so much you haven't learned, Tom. We draw from a single well. Darkness and light live only within the human mind."

Sirius could barely understand what the Druid witch was talking about. Maybe she was just trying to buy them some time. Either way, it was working; Voldemort's face was still in thought as he tried to process what she was saying.

Myra went on. "You've made this fight so much harder for yourself, Tom Riddle. If you only knew what you were missing!"

On her stomach, Lily crawled toward the Imperiused girl holding her baby. Harry's whimpers turned to urgent exclamations as his mother approached.

"Melora!" Lucius Malfoy ordered.

The girl clutched Harry hard to her side with one arm and held out her wand with the other. "Reducto!" A spruce tree cracked in two, the upper half of the trunk falling toward Lily. Lily shrieked and tried to clamber out of the way. Her protective charm died on her lips.

"Wingardium leviosa!" Sirius barked. Inches from crushing Lily's spine, the fallen tree floated upward. Sirius caught a glimpse of Snape's face, paper-white with fear and relief. Lily scrambled toward Melora as quickly as she could.

Myra Spring raised both palms toward the Death Eaters. "I won't have you harming my friends, Tom Riddle. Begone."

Voldemort laughed. "Begone? What am I, a bowtruckle?"

"You are no more and no less a child of Mother Earth."

"I have no mother," he said coldly. "Melora Spring! Bring me the child. We shall end this."

Melora walked forward slowly. Lily lunged to physically wrestle Harry from her arms. A glowing green sphere formed around Melora and Harry, flinging Lily back like an electric shock. She landed near Snape, and he raised her to her feet. His stringy black hair trailed over Lily's smudged face as he leaned over to whisper something in her ear.

Myra Spring vanished without a sound. In the time it took for a startled cry to escape Snape's lips, Myra had reappeared between Melora and Voldemort.

"Severus," said Myra, turning her face only partway toward him as she concentrated on her opponent, "You can't fight it any more, my dear. It's part of your magic for better or worse. Embrace it. Embrace it and fight!"

Lily was just as confused as Sirius, he realized as their eyes met over Snape's bowed head. Whatever Myra meant, Snape understood; strength seemed to flow back into his limbs, and he gripped his rowan wand with determination.

Voldemort's smile twined all over his face. He motioned to the masked Death Eaters and they stepped forward to flank him. Bellatrix bubbled over with anticipation, but Lucius and Narcissa stayed back, Narcissa clinging to her husband's arm in terror.

"Now I shall negate the cursed prophecy. I shall complete the cleansing; I shall start anew. This is the first day of my unchallenged dominance. _Avada Kedavra!_ "

A hissing green jet of light flew from Voldemort's wand. Lily screamed and flung herself in its path. Suddenly, the entire world went bright white like a massive chunk of sodium dropped in water, like the burning sun dropped to ground, like every firework on Earth igniting at once.

Sirius clapped his hands over his eyes to shield them from the searing radiance. Through his slitted fingers, Sirius could just make out Myra Spring standing at the center of the unbearable glow. Her arms were flung out at her sides, and her lips moved in a joyful song. Time itself slowed to a crawl. Voldemort's Killing Curse was subsumed by the whiteness, twirling around and around like a curl of bubbles slipping down the drain.

Voldemort raised his wand in excruciatingly slow motion. He fired another Killing Curse into the glare, the distillation of all his fear and hatred. Myra Spring closed her eyes and sang. The sickly green ray speared her chest and exited through her back, but she kept singing in a language so ancient, no one on Earth would ever hear it again.

The brightness contracted, shrinking into a dwarf star centered on Myra's heart. Myra opened her eyes and looked toward her curse-bound daughter and at little Harry Potter, shielding his little eyes against the white fire. Myra whispered "Melora," and then the world exploded.

Of Myra Spring, there remained no trace. No body, no wand, not even a set of footprints where she had once walked the earth. Voldemort was also nowhere to be found. Only his wand remained, smoking and charred on the forest floor. Bellatrix scrambled to grab it from the ground before Sirius could move, clutching the elm wood to her breast. She howled aloud, her voice slicing the air and echoing from the high peaks of the great mountains.

"Harry!" Lily found her son sitting unharmed on the forest floor. She gathered the baby into her arms and kissed him, folding him so close in her arms, he squeaked and wiggled to be let free. Melora Spring lay unconscious beside him, breathing regularly as if in sleep.

"She's all right?" Snape's voice broke and he sank to his knees beside the Druid's daughter. His fingers lifted Melora's red-gold hair away from her forehead, revealing a jagged red slash. "Myra, I'm so sorry…"

"It's not over, Snape," said Lucius Malfoy, stepping forward with his lip curled. Mulciber and Yaxley flanked him, their silver masks falling forgotten to the ground. "You betrayed the Dark Lord. By the vows you made to Lord Voldemort, and by the power of the Mark, your life and possessions are forfeit. Mulciber!" Snape's old school friend Disarmed Lily, grabbing her by the upper arms. She fought to keep from dropping Harry, elbowing Mulciber in the gut.

"No one touches Lily Potter."

"No one but you?" mocked Mulciber. "I've been waiting for this for a long time, Snivellus."

" _Stupefy! Incarcerous!_ " Sirius barked. Mulciber and Yaxley fell, each bound in conjured white ropes. Lily gave Sirius a grateful smile, securing her wand in her right hand and training it on Lucius Malfoy. Narcissa stood by the hysterically sobbing Bellatrix, looking like she wanted more than anything to flee.

"Your Master's dead," said Sirius slyly, correctly judging Lucius's hesitation. "Why bother? You could just take Narcissa and run."

"He is not dead," said Lucius with grim certainty, "Only gone."

"Lucius, please!" Narcissa cried. "Think of Draco! This means nothing now!"

"Draco would be far safer this way, my love." Lucius aimed his wand at Lily and Harry.

" _Avada Kedavra!_ " Snape lowered his wand like a gunslinger in an old Muggle Western. Lucius fell to the ground. Narcissa opened her mouth to scream, but the very breath was stolen from her lungs. Incredulous horror dawned on Lily's face.

"Cissy!" Bellatrix cried, broken out of her trance by Narcissa's long, shuddering gasp. She faced Snape with wild fury in her black eyes. "You killed him!"

All around them came the multiple reports of Apparition. Mad-Eye Moody and the Prewett brothers charged up and flanked Narcissa and Bellatrix. "You're under arrest, Mrs. Malfoy," panted Moody, "for using the Imperius Curse on the Muggle Sarah Price—and you, Madame Lestrange, for the murder of the same."

"Bella, go!" Narcissa cried. "Save Draco!"

Fabian Prewett made a grab for Bellatrix, but she slashed at him with her wand, Disapparating in a flurry of sable. When Bellatrix was gone, Narcissa mutely held her arms out to be bound. Gideon Prewett immobilized her arms and legs with a glowing golden rope.

Moody prodded the fallen foe with his artificial foot, and knelt stiffly down to examine the corpse. "Malfoy."

"He's dead," said Snape heavily.

"Sev?" said Lily Potter in a small voice, stepping beside him. Harry looked solemnly at his mother's companion.

"Malfoy was my friend once."

Lily laid her blood-smeared hand on Severus's forearm. He leaned closer to her as if taking strength from her presence. Sirius couldn't quite take the sight of that; James would not have been happy at all to see that friendship rekindled.

Dorcas rolled over on the ground, rubbing her dirt-smudged face as if awakening from a long dream. "Alastor!" she said with surprise.

"It's over, Dorcas." Moody's magical eye spun in its socket. "Voldemort's scarpered."

"It was the druid Myra Spring," said Lily, "She killed Voldemort; she died to save us."

"Malfoy was right… he's not dead," said Severus, rubbing his left arm through the torn sleeve of his black robes.

"May I?" said Moody gruffly. Severus drew up his sleeve and exposed the Dark Mark, receding but still present beneath his sallow skin. Sirius felt sick to his stomach.

More Apparitions erupted all around them as the second wave of the Order arrived. Professor McGonagall and Hagrid popped into existence near the rowan hedge. McGonagall made a strangled squeak and rushed straight for Lily and the baby, embracing them and sobbing. Sirius found himself laughing as Lily had all she could do to keep the frenzied McGonagall from knocking Harry out of her arms, reassuring their old teacher that Harry was all right.

Hagrid walked hesitantly toward Dorcas. Sirius's heart contracted as Hagrid's face failed to light up as he thought it would at the sight of Dorcas alive and hale.

Dorcas met him with her hands clasped tight in front of her like a small girl. "Rubeus, I can't even begin to say how sorry I am."

"I thought I knew yeh better than that." Dorcas's hands flew up to cover her eyes in shame. Sirius could see the warring needs in Hagrid's vast blotchy face: anger and love intermingled.

"Can you ever forgive me?" Dorcas asked in a small voice from behind her own hands.

"Sweet Dorcas, I'm afraid I already have," said Hagrid with the delicate tone he reserved for injured owls as he splinted their wings. Dorcas lowered her hands, unsure she had heard him correctly. He smiled and nodded, tears leaking from his bright black eyes.

Dorcas ran the four steps into Hagrid's arms. He swung her up and around as she pressed her face into the hollow of his massive shoulder. As Hagrid kissed her, a strong breeze blew through the treetops, dissipating the Dark Mark in the sky.

"Never thought I'd see those two snogging, but I can't say I'm displeased," said Fabian Prewett with a wink, standing beside Sirius. "You all right, Black?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Listen, do you know anything about Myra Spring?"

Fabian sobered. "I have a feeling we're all going to wish we knew her better."

"I never thought Voldemort could be killed," said McGonagall shakily.

"He's not dead," Snape repeated. "Only gone." Snape echoed Malfoy's words as he glanced at the dead body on the ground. Amelia Bones was covering Lucius's body with a white shroud. Narcissa stood mutely in Auror custody, awaiting transfer to Azkaban.

Moody stood impatiently by Hagrid and Dorcas, waiting for them to break apart. Finally, he cleared his throat. "Meadowes!" he ordered.

"I thought I was sacked, Alastor," said a pink-cheeked Dorcas. Hagrid chuckled and patted her silver hair back from her face.

"I'm sorry to have to do this. Prewett," said Moody, summoning Gideon from where he was assisting Magical Law Enforcement with the prisoners. "Dorcas Meadowes, I'm placing you under arrest for the illegal use of Veritaserum on Professor Pomona Sprout. Surrender your wand to Auror Prewett. You will be held in Azkaban awaiting trial."

Dorcas looked up at Hagrid, and he shook his massive head sadly, tears streaking down into his mustache and beard. Dorcas held her arms out without resistance.

"Don' go," moaned Hagrid.

"It's all right," said Dorcas in a calm voice, smiling up at Hagrid. "Don't worry about me, darling."

"Please, Mad-Eye."

"Hagrid, there's nothing I can do." Moody cast glowing golden ropes around Dorcas's wrists, binding them securely. Gideon stood holding his former supervisor's wand, sorrow and determination mingled on his freckled face.

"I expect she's got a pretty good lawyer at Hogwarts," said Sirius, trying to comfort his enormous friend.

"Dumbledore, a' course," said Hagrid, wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

"Alastor, let me speak to Black, please," said Dorcas with bright eyes.

"You know I shouldn't."

"I didn't hear anything, sir," said Gideon loyally. Moody harrumphed and turned around, taking his magical eye out of the socket and rubbing it clean with a handkerchief.

Dorcas smiled at him in thanks. "Listen, Black, if you want to do something for the Order – if you want to do something for me – join the Auror training program. That's what you and Potter always talked about. Live his dream."

"Oh, Sirius, what a wonderful idea," said Lily beside him. "James would have loved that."

Moody popped his eye back into the socket and gestured to Gideon. "Azkaban," he ordered.

"Yes, sir." Gideon and Dorcas Disapparated. Hagrid's sobs followed them through space and time.

"Where are you going to stay?" Sirius asked Lily a few minutes later. Harry clung to Lily's shoulder, tired but still awake.

"Hogwarts. Professor McGonagall asked us to stay in her guest room for a while. We're bringing Melora to the infirmary – she's in shock, the poor thing. I don't think she understands what happened to her mother." The strawberry-blonde teenager sat on a fallen log, her blue-green eyes fogged over with confusion. She rubbed the new scar on her forehead as she stared into the darkening forest.

"That's a lot to take in. I'm not sure I understand what Myra did, either, but I sure am damned glad she did it. I'll see you at Hogwarts tomorrow, then. I've got to get home tonight and get some sleep."

"Thank you," said Lily, embracing Sirius tightly and kissing his cheek. He returned her hug and kiss as he would with a sister. Harry kicked between them, protesting being squashed. Smiling, Lily let Harry down to run around. The little boy toddled directly to Snape, who stood watching over Melora and surveyed Sirius with suspicion as he gathered Harry up into his arms.

Sirius decided to be a bigger man than Snivellus; surely it wouldn't take much, he thought with a wicked smile growing on his face. "Thank you for keeping them safe… Lily and Harry both. I guess I owe you one."

Severus Snape chuckled. Sirius startled at the sound; he didn't think he'd ever heard Snape laugh before. "I reckon you owe me two."


	22. Lumos

Lily struggled to scream. She thrashed in bed, kicking off the coverlet and throwing back the finely pressed linen sheets. Slowly, Lily recognized where she was: Minerva McGonagall's guest bedroom at the base of Gryffindor Tower. The sun had yet to rise over the mountains, and the Black Lake lay still as night. Harry drowsed safely in a well-shielded cot, cuddling a stuffed snowy owl Minerva had given him the night before.

Something familiar about the owl leaked into Lily's conscious mind like the silvery stuff from a Pensieve. The owl was in her nightmare, but she couldn't remember where exactly. At first, Harry was an orphan in Petunia's house; her son wore ill-fitting eyeglasses just like James's, but they were held together by Muggle transparent tape. Harry fried bacon for Vernon and Petunia, a servant from a modern-day Dickens novel. Next, Harry fought a giant serpent in a subterranean grotto. A redheaded girl lay unconscious on the stone floor. The scene changed rapidly, and a lanky, gawky Harry whose voice was already breaking battled a flaming dragon on a broomstick – that one hurt to recall, because she saw so much of James in his effortless soaring – and later, the most vivid memory of all: herself as a ghost, floating along behind her son as he walked to his own death.

Lily rubbed her sweaty face with her palms. Even her teeth hurt; she'd been clenching them all night. A small stained-glass clock on the bedside said it was only a quarter past five. She'd never get back to sleep; the dream had her jumping at shadows. Lily slid out of bed and put on the spare tartan slippers Minerva had left near the wardrobe. Once she left the blankets, Lily was cold, the sweat drying on her skin from the dream's agitation. She wrapped Myra's old gray dressing gown around herself and left a note for Minerva on the hall table.

Lily smiled as she passed the Fat Lady, snoring gently in her canvas with a voluminous pink nightcap covering her coiffure. Under the Great Hall, the house-elves were already preparing every good thing in the world for breakfast. The smell made Lily's stomach growl. A prickling cold sensation swept up beside her as she stopped to take a deep breath of the delectable aromas of grilled tomatoes and bacon.

"Lily Evans! Why, it's been years. I'd heard you weren't dead after all. I confess I hoped to see you join our number here at Hogwarts."

Lily pulled Myra's old dressing gown tighter. Nick was an old dear for a ghost–when she was a prefect, she'd become as close to him as a human could be to an apparition – but he did create a chilly downdraft. "It's wonderful to see you, too."

Nearly Headless Nick scratched at the jagged seam running along the base of his neck. "Is there something I can help you find, my dear? Something for young Harry, perhaps?"

"Could you please tell me how to get to Professor Snape's office?"

"Directly behind the Potions classroom, my dear, but why would you need a potion at this early hour? Wouldn't it be better to see Miss Pomfrey if little Harry has fallen ill?"

"I just need to speak to Severus."

Sir Nicholas made a sound like a door blowing open in a stiff breeze. "I'll escort you."

"You're very sweet to worry, but I'll be perfectly all right." The specter tried to follow her down the steep stairs leading down from the main corridor, but Lily waved him off with a friendly smile.

"The other ghosts have said terrible things about Professor Snape. Terrible things. The Fat Friar's very reliable…"

Lily cut him off. "I trust him, Nick. I know I'm not Head Girl anymore, but my word will have to be good enough for you. I'll see you later."

Leaving an insulted ghost fretting behind her, Lily picked her way down the poorly lit stairs. The temperature dropped about ten degrees with each level she descended. Her breath showed as mist in the corridor, illuminated by the flickering green torches.

The Potions corridor was exactly as she remembered. They were so far below ground, the level of light never changed. At any moment, young Lily could come tripping out of Slughorn's classroom, barely restraining herself from bragging to Severus about her marks. Lily stopped to lean against the wall for a moment, her heart pounding unaccountably.

The door to the Potions classroom stood open. On the worktables, cauldrons stood clean and ready for the day's first lesson. A sliver of yellow lamplight showed under the door beside the student store cupboard. Lily tiptoed across to knock.

"Yes?" said a slightly irritated voice on the other side.

"It's Lily."

"Come in." The door swung open of its own accord. Severus sat on a wide leather sofa, fully dressed in a black frock coat. A half-full cup of tea steamed on the side table beside him. Scrolls lay stacked in such a narrow, high arrangement on the work surface, Lily thought they couldn't stay upright without being charmed. Severus seemed completely at home. Lily felt a fleeting resentment for his ability to relax into his old routines where her own were destroyed forever.

In a shallow cabinet on the rear wall stood a vast array of flasks in dozens of colors, some glowing softly and some pulling light into little pockets of self-contained darkness. Lily recognized several of the preparations even without the labels written in Severus's precise lettering – Felix Felicis, Amortentia, and the Draught of Living Death. She walked closer, bending to examine a flask whose contents were a mystery. The potion was a soft gold color, swirling with opalescent light.

"What's this one?"

"That's Forgetfulness Potion. Attractive, isn't it?" Lily sat on the other end of the sofa without waiting to be asked. Severus rolled a student's paper and moved it to the marked pile. "I'd have thought you'd need your sleep after yesterday. Where's the boy?"

It amused Lily that Severus rarely used Harry's first name, as if something of James clung to him when his name were spoken aloud. "He's in Minerva's guest room, fast asleep in his cot. She'll be all too glad to fawn over him if he wakes up before I get back." Lily tightened her arms around herself, still feeling a chill from the damp corridor outside. "I had a nightmare. I couldn't get back to sleep."

"I believe Muggles are far wiser than we; many consider dreams a random firing of neurons." Severus unrolled another essay and snorted at the words written in a blotchy, childlike hand that tipped dramatically to the left. "First-years."

Lily wanted to shake him. Irritation brought her back to herself, sweeping the remnants of otherworldly fear from her waking mind. "I need you to listen for five minutes, Severus, is that too much to ask?" He rolled the first-year's essay into a tight cylinder and folded his broad hands on the worktable, waiting for her to speak. "I dreamed Harry's entire life last night. James and I both died in Godric's Hollow, but it was Voldemort, not Peter who killed us. Petunia raised him… she hated him. You… you were his Potions teacher. You were really hard on him." Severus smirked a little at her reprimand. "I don't remember all of it, but Harry had James's cloak. I saw him sneaking around in Hogsmeade with two other kids, a boy and a girl. The boy looked like a Weasley.

"Then Harry was in a graveyard—there was a boy on the ground beside him, a dead boy. Peter cut into Harry's arm with a knife – he brought back Voldemort with Harry's blood."

Severus used a softer voice than he had before. "Lily, Peter Pettigrew is dead."

Lily hiccuped. "Is this where I'm supposed to say 'thank you?'"? Severus didn't respond, but he shifted uncomfortably on the cold, hard leather sofa. "He fought, Severus. He fought Voldemort alone, and he was just a child. It was terrible." She closed her mouth, unwilling to continue.

"What else?"

"We died for him, Severus. Me, James, Sirius, Remus, Dumbledore… even you. We died so Harry could live."

Severus didn't answer right away. A vertical line appeared between his dark brows, and he answered with veiled contempt. "Dumbledore: that's a surprise."

His lowered voice had always made Lily shiver, but not with fear: feelings she had steered quickly away from as a young girl, parsing their very impossibility even as the quickness entered her heartbeat. When they were young, Lily joked and teased to distract him from such intensity. After the breach in their friendship, it simply made her furious how Severus could still pull her strings without even trying.

"And yourself?"

Severus sat quietly for a moment, his shoulders hunched over. He clasped his hands between his knees, his damp hair hiding his face from her. "The only thing that surprises me is how long I survived without you." Before Lily had a chance to answer, Severus stood up, striding toward a bookshelf. Mingled among stacks of scrolls and leather-bound books of magic were plain volumes covered in cloth. Lily watched as Severus flipped rapidly through two books and shelved them again with care. He brought a third volume bound in red back to the sofa and sat beside her, opening the book to a marked page. "Muggles call it the many-worlds theory. Here." He slid the heavy book into her lap and pointed to the article.

"I didn't know you read Muggle scientific journals."

"For fun," Severus qualified. Lily smiled through her tears. "Many physicists believe that alternate universes are real. Every branch of possibility exists somewhere; every time we make a decision, we create another world."

Lily blew her nose. "That's far too much responsibility for my liking. One world is bad enough."

"Perhaps your dream was connected to the prophecy."

Lily shuddered and crumpled her handkerchief in her palm. "I'm not a Seer, Severus. At least I'd better not be. I'd hate to be stuck up in a tower with all those blasted crystal balls."

"Perhaps it is the echo from another reality; perhaps it was brought on by the trauma you experienced yesterday." Severus reached a hesitant hand across to Lily's cheek and brushed her sweaty auburn hair back behind her ear. Lily's heart thumped painfully sideways as if someone were sitting on her ribcage. She shouldn't feel this way when he touched her; it had to be the long days of hiding together, protecting Harry, depending on one another to survive. She loved James. She was thankful Severus was her friend again. That was all. "Are you all right?"

"I guess I'll have to be." Lily leaned against the back of the sofa and tried to relax her clenched muscles. "Apparently I've been declared legally dead, thanks to your fancy spellwork on Peter's body. I have to go to the Ministry this morning and sort it out before I can get into Gringotts. What a bloody bore."

Severus's wide mouth quirked upward at the corners. "I'm going to spend some time with Melora today. Dumbledore wants me to examine that scar."

"Poor thing." Lily felt uncomfortable. Melora Spring, Myra's only child, clung to life in the hospital wing; her life lay in ruins, even more than Lily's own. Lily wondered what she could possibly do to make amends. "I saw Miss Pomfrey and Minerva shaking their heads over her last night. Do you have any idea what Myra did to save us?"

Severus shook his head. "I never learned as much from her as I should have. Myra kept trying to teach me more of the Druid way, but I was so focused… first on impressing you, then on making the Dark Lord proud."

Lily's breath caught at the self-loathing in his voice. Severus had never been one to volunteer personal revelations; it cost him dearly to admit such a failing. Lily's palm hovered over his forearm. Severus flinched away and pulled his sleeve down over the Dark Mark.

"You don't have to worry about that anymore."

"Which one?"

"Neither of them."

As dark as his frock coat, Severus's eyes stared emptily into the corner of the room, at the ranks of dusty flasks filled with floating dead creatures, at the lamplight flickering off the stained-glass windows. "I loved her, Lily. She tried so hard to be what I needed. She knew what I needed, and she never asked for anything in return."

Tears swam back into Lily's eyes. "I loved Myra, too, and I only knew her for a few weeks. Wherever she's gone, she knows how you feel."

"I wish I believed in any of that."

Silence stretched between them. "It's six o'clock," said Severus unexpectedly, "are you hungry? I could have the kitchens send something down."

Lily yawned. "Not yet. Would anyone miss me if I got another half-hour of sleep?"

"I doubt it."

Lily couldn't keep her eyes open. "Read to me."

She had the rare satisfaction of a surprised pause. "Not first-year potions? I'm afraid their grammar will only give you further nightmares."

"Anything. It would help me relax." Lily shifted the Muggle journal to the worktable, lay down on her side on the smooth black leather sofa, and pulled her arms under her head. "Wake me at six-thirty?"

Lily heard the rustle of scrolls on the side table. _"The mechanics of hellebore when taken concomitant with infusion of asphodel…"_

She dreamed no more.


	23. Liberacorpus

"That's everything," said Sirius, rubbing the dust from his forehead. He closed the last trunk with a twist of his wand. "Ready to go?" Lily sat cross-legged on the floor in front of a dented chest of drawers. The bottom drawer stood open, and Lily reached inside, pulling out an old pair of blue jeans. She ran her fingers over the age-softened fabric. A faint smile played about her lips but failed to reach her reddened, shadowed eyes. "Lily?"

"Look," she said, holding up the trousers. "One more pair. You should take them. I bet they'd fit you."

Sirius squatted down beside Lily on the braided bedroom rug. They had cleared the more dangerous debris from Voldemort's tantrum, but it still felt like a war zone and haunted besides. Tangible scraps of James Potter's everyday life were everywhere: spare eyeglasses, the Quidditch magazine he had tucked on his side of the bed for a little light reading, and the garment in Lily's hands. For Lily's sake, Sirius kept a tight grip on his own grief. He couldn't judge just how close she was to completely losing it. Sirius was sorry Hagrid was off on a crazy quest to get into Azkaban and visit Dorcas; he could really use a stiff drink with his oversized friend.

Lily pushed James's old jeans forcibly into his hands. "Come on, Sirius, take them. They won't fit me."

Sirius resisted the urge to bring them up to his face and take a deep breath just to see if his best friend's scent clung to the fabric. Sirius' Animagus self came out at the oddest times.

"Lils, there's a giant hole in the crotch. I can't wear these." Sirius chuckled. "Oh, I remember when he got this. We were out on patrol one night – on my motorbike – hot on the trail of some Death Eaters, and we got chased by these overly conscientious Muggle policemen. It was the best fun."

"I remember that night. He never told me he tore his jeans, though."

Sirius folded the jeans and pressed them into his rucksack. "He was too scared of what you'd say to him after the last time he asked you to mend something he ripped."

Lily gave a weak smile. "I think I told him to learn his own mending spell or he could stick it up his bloody spoiled arse, I wasn't his damned house-elf and he was going to have to grow up and live with it."

"Yeah, I think I remember that story."

"I hate that we fought so much, Sirius."

"It wasn't really fighting, Lil. You guys just had that 'blow up, hex each other stupid, then have wild and crazy make-up sex' kind of relationship. There's nothing wrong with that. Ouch!" Lily punched him hard in the shoulder. "You could stand to be a little less violent."

"Shut up!" Sirius pretended to cringe with terror, and Lily chuckled, drawing her legs up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. "God, Sirius, I'm so lonely."

"I know who'd fill in for James if you gave him one tiny little bat-sized hint," Sirius baited.

"Severus isn't like that."

Sirius snorted at her instant defense of their former enemy. "Like hell he isn't. That greasy git has wanted in your pants ever since he figured out what pants were for. Petunia said…"

Lily's face went still and white. "You talked to Petunia?"

Shit. Now he'd put his foot in it. "Yeah, at Mrs. Figg's, the night Dolohov and Nott attacked her. Don't worry, Dumbledore Obliviated her. She doesn't know..." Lily put her face down between her knees as if to keep from fainting. Sirius scooted over beside her on the floor and wrapped an arm around her. "Lil?"

"Sirius, if you could start over with your brother…"

Sirius suddenly understood. "Yeah. Yeah, I would in a second."

"What's the worst she could do?" Lily asked whimsically, wiping her tears on Sirius's Wimbourne Wasps T-shirt.

"I think she misses you... I don't think anything bad is going to happen." Unless she finds out Severus Snape is sniffing around you again, Sirius mentally amended.

"I don't know if I'm ready to see her. Maybe in a few weeks. Melora's needed a lot of care... Poppy Pomfrey said I should be able to take her home after Christmas."

"You're going back to Wales?"

"I can't leave her all alone. She's lost her mum, she's been so ill - the headaches have been dreadful - and she's a very young seventeen, Sirius." Lily sighed. " Severus can't stay past New Year's, either, he has to teach."

Sirius couldn't help but feel misgivings at Lily's plan. He hadn't spent much time with the injured girl. He didn't know what she'd been like before she was cursed, but frankly, Melora scared him.

"When you go to Petunia's, I'll go with you."

"Come on, Sirius! Petunia hates your guts."

"Yeah, there is that, but I've got a very useful four-legged friend. Fancy getting a dog for Harry?" Lily giggled through her tears. "We've got to go pick him up from Bathilda's pretty soon, it's close to teatime. She said she had smoked salmon." Sirius's stomach rumbled.

"Once a dog, always a dog." Lily extended her hand and Sirius helped her up. They levitated the trunks down to the reopened Floo in the parlor. "I can't face rebuilding this house, Sirius. There are too many memories."

"In the spring?" he suggested. "We could throw up some charms to keep off the snow."

"That's a good idea."

"Don't act all surprised."

Lily dropped the rucksack she was holding and hugged him tightly. "Sirius, I never thanked you for saving us."

Sirius shuffled his feet. He pushed his face into Lily's hair to keep her from feeling the heat of his sudden blush. "I didn't have that much to do with it; it was mostly your friend the Druid."

"But you came. You tried. You were there, Sirius."

"I know you'd do the same for me."

"Always," she promised.

"Even if you fall for Snivellus and run off and have five more kids with great big noses?"

Lily dropped the stack of cookbooks she was packing into the last open trunk. "Oh my God, Sirius! Why do you keep saying stuff like that? I ought to hex you into next week."

"I just want you to be careful, Lily. He's a Death Eater."

"Double agent," she corrected. "Severus was working for the Order the entire time."

"Yeah, but not 'till You-Know-Who threatened you. Until then, he was perfectly happy to be a bad guy."

"Severus has a conscience. He gets carried away sometimes, but he has a good heart, Sirius. I know you don't see that."

"So has he made a move on you?"

Lily sighed and sat down on top of a trunk. "No, he's been a gentleman. Sirius, he was my best friend. Once we were as close as you and James. I know you don't like to think about that, but it's true. We're friends again, and he knows I was in love with James. He knows there's no way I could possibly think about seeing anyone for a long time. I've got Harry to raise on my own. My son has to be the first thing in my mind."

"If you're really going to be friends with Snape, I think you ought to tell him what you just told me." Lily looked up, guilty and confused. "You have feelings for him. It's all right, I'm not going to yell at you; I'll leave that to Petunia. I don't trust the git as far as I can throw him, but if you can be sure it's not Denmark Syndrome – or whatever the Muggles call it –"

"Stockholm Syndrome," said Lily, irritated.

"Yeah, that's it, Stockholm Syndrome – then you ought to take it very slow."

"You're Harry's godfather, not mine. I don't need babysitting."

Sirius regretted having pressed her so hard. Lily was a sister to him, as much as James had been a brother. He hoped he hadn't pissed her off too badly. He wanted to see Harry as often as he could.  
Lily stood up and dusted off her green corduroy bellbottoms. "I have to say it is nice to have my own clothes back again. I feel more like myself than I have in weeks."

"You looked gorgeous in McGonagall's plaid robes the other night at the Order meeting. Very Highlands, my lassie. Ouch!" Sirius laughed as Lily cast a playful jinx in his direction.

* * *

 

**Six weeks later**

Severus watched with one eyebrow raised as Professor Dumbledore picked gaily through a box of chocolates. A Christmas tree twinkled in the center of the room, attended by some of Professor Flitwick's enchanted fairies. "I still don't know why you summoned me to your office to watch you rot your teeth on Muggle sweets."

"Care for one? Oh, I forgot you don't like chocolate. Ice mice?" Dumbledore pulled the striped ribbon from the sack. Severus could hear the confections squeaking.

"I don't like sweets much at all, sir."

"We have other vices, don't we, my boy?" Severus drew back with offense. "It's all right, Severus. After all these years as an Occlumens, it's quite touching how you can't hide your feelings for Lily Potter."

Severus felt a hot blush traveling up from his chest, under his high collar. "I'm beyond fortunate to have her friendship after what I did to her."

"Severus, you can't blame yourself."

"And why not? I betrayed her to the Dark Lord. I'm the one who delivered the damned prophecy. Pettigrew may have killed James Potter, but his blood is on my hands."

"Even if the prophecy has been invalidated?"

"What?" Severus couldn't believe it. "Tell me how."

Albus Dumbledore loved to prove a point. His bright blue eyes lit up with joy at the academic pursuit. "I've been working on this ever since you and Lily were found alive. Firstly: Lily Potter confronted Voldemort five times. Three times before Harry's birth, it's true, but two times since, and both with you." Severus nodded, steepling his fingers tightly together to relieve his restlessness. "Secondly: Voldemort failed to mark little Harry Potter as his equal. I believe the curious injury sustained by Miss Spring has a vital significance."

"You can't be serious."

"Search me, Severus. When have you found me not to be serious?" Dumbledore cracked the bottom of a chocolate caramel with his finger. "Dear me, hazelnuts. I'm terribly fond of them, but once they gave me a canker sore. Would you like this? My hands are clean."

Severus got up so quickly, his heavy carved chair clattered to the stone floor. Fawkes fluted a sleepy reprimand from his perch behind the desk and pulled a carnelian wing over his burning eyes. The fairies in Dumbledore's Christmas tree flew up toward the ceiling, chittering like crickets. "Why must you behave so childishly?"

"I prefer 'childlike'. Odd, isn't it, how the change of suffix completely alters the connotation of a word."

"It's unbecoming, Sir."

Dumbledore twinkled at him. "When you are Headmaster, dear boy, you may behave as you choose."

Severus chuckled involuntarily and stirred his tea. "You know Professor McGonagall's been waiting for decades but she's too fond of you to say so. The job's hers first."

"It's good to know you have ambitions in keeping with your considerable talents."

"And what of my other ambitions?" Severus asked with a self-deprecating smirk. "Foolhardy, aren't they?"

"Severus, I've watched over you since you were a child. I want your happiness very much. I must caution you, however, that it is far simpler to die for a loved one than to live for her."

Lily's wrenching scream as she cast her own body between Voldemort and her son rippled through Severus's memory, as vivid as it had been that terrible November night in Wales. "Lily would have died for Harry, had it not been for Myra… and Myra died for us all."

Albus Dumbledore stood and walked to the window, where the light leached slowly from the snowy, treeless slopes. Glowing a ghostly gray-blue, the snow held tenaciously onto the day's feeble light which grew fainter with each passing moment.

Severus could not see the old man's face as he finally answered. "Mothers and children: an unfathomable mystery. Speaking of which, I have a mission for you, Severus…"

Severus spoke boldly. "Only if it's related to Hogwarts. I'm through with the Order, sir. I'm through with your 'missions;' I'm through with your manipulation. No one knows how I've suffered to do your bidding. This will never be gone from me." Severus tore his sleeve in his haste to thrust his scarred left forearm in the old man's face.

Something like pride shone in Dumbledore's blue eyes, making him look even more like Father Christmas in the flickering torchlight – not that such an apparition had ever come for Severus as a boy. "I counsel patience," said Professor Dumbledore in his maddening all-knowing tone. "Give Lily time, Severus. Never forget I have known her as long as you yourself. She holds you in high regard. Give her time to pull the cut threads of her life back into some semblance of order."

"She's gone to her sister's for Christmas," Severus muttered.

"Ah, yes. Mr. Black asked permission to accompany her in his Animagus form."

Severus felt a violent twist of jealousy in the pit of his stomach. He pulled at the long buttoned cuffs of his frock coat. "I wanted to go, too. I could have used the Invisibility Cloak and stayed outside to guard her, but she asked me to stay away."

"Severus, it may be extremely dangerous to leave the Order. You know far too much about both sides of this conflict. Without protection, it may be easier for the remaining Death Eaters to have their revenge upon you. Bellatrix Lestrange comes to mind."

"Why can't you believe that I want Voldemort's final destruction as much as you do? I joined you to protect Lily Potter and her son. They are now alone in the world; they have to be my first priority."

Dumbledore stood before the Christmas tree for a few moments, rearranging the bright red and green baubles with his wand. Flitwick's fairies disapproved and pushed the ornaments back where they were. Severus fidgeted, driving his thumbnails into the palms of his hands in frustration.

"This is my Christmas gift to you, Severus. I release you from your obligations to the Order of the Phoenix." A scroll appeared in front of Dumbledore. Ceremonially, he passed it to a drowsy Fawkes, who kindled it to blazing fire in mid-air. Ashes rained down on the floor. "Remember, however, that Lily Potter remains an active member by her own solemn vow and may be called upon to serve the greater good."

Severus smiled tightly. "I understand."

"Let us proceed to the Great Hall," said Dumbledore, "I heard there'll be French onion soup… a favorite of yours, no?"

Severus followed the Headmaster down the spiral stairs, past the stone eagle and the jolly gargoyles singing carols, down the familiar hallways he had trod since childhood. It was a new world, a free world, and for the first time in years, he felt as if he had the power to shape his own future. With patience, Lily could be part of that future; Harry, too, he surprised himself by thinking, seeing the hopeful young faces of the students staying for the holidays. Severus smiled at a third-year from Ravenclaw (after all, the boy had written a passable essay on essence of dittany before the end of term) and felt a deep satisfaction when he turned in panic to a friend sitting nearby.

"Professor Snape smiled at me! What did I do? I must be in so much trouble!"


	24. Epilogue

Sweeping up fir needles and biscuit crumbs in the front hall, Petunia rid her surroundings of the outside world. With a gloved hand and a chamois rag, she rubbed in wood polish with small, round strokes until she could see her own thin, worried face in the side of the china closet.

Cleaning was a meditation for Petunia; it was her last remaining refuge after she had thrown her prayer book at the Vicar last Sunday. The Vicar rang three times and his wife once, the timid little woman hanging up with a most un-Christian exclamation at Petunia's scream. Petunia Dursley was through with God. She disdained the way Lily and her friends went about their selfish lives without any consideration of a higher power, but she had a deep, smoldering feeling in her soul that perhaps the wizards had the right of it. Without her sister, the world crumbled apart; everything that had seemed sane and correct before was revealed rotten at the heart.

Petunia was always terrified of Lily's powers. She could have waved that little stick of hers and smashed any attacker, and yet she was dead in the most ignominious fashion. She died as any common woman with a jealous lover might; even in death, Lily deserved better.

Upstairs, Petunia rubbed endlessly at a purplish-black smudge on the grout between two solid white bathroom tiles. It wouldn't come off, not even with scouring powder and a short-handled scrub brush. Petunia tore at it frantically, trying to expunge the clouded blackness. Through her pink rubber gloves, she scratched at the stain with her nails. Silently, her mouth opened in a thwarted howl of fury.

The doorbell rang. Petunia heard Vernon shuffle out of the living room where he and Dudley were watching the same Christmas program over and over on their new video recorder. Petunia had no heart for Christmas this year. Erecting the shabby little tree in the parlor had drained her energy.

"Petunia!" Vernon called with strange urgency in his voice.

"I'm busy!" If it were the neighbors dropping in to snicker at their pathetic Christmas tree, Petunia didn't want to speak to them. Since Lily's death, she could barely tolerate interacting with her own husband and child, let alone making small talk with nosy idiots. If it was a collector looking for a handout on Christmas Eve, Vernon would have sent him or her on their way with a resounding slam of the front door. If it was Vernon's sister Marge, Vernon would be happy, and the barks and stinks of dogs would already be coming up the stairs.

"Petunia, now!" A faint thread of panic colored Vernon's voice. Petunia dropped her wet scrub brush on the bathroom floor and clattered downstairs with her rubber gloves on.

A red-haired woman in a long paisley wrap dress stood in the front hall. In her arms, she held a little boy with messy black hair. Petunia gripped the handrail and screamed.

Lily Potter turned her face up toward her sister. Uncertain and frightened, Lily's green eyes brimmed over with tears.

"You're supposed to be dead," said Petunia, her voice broken and raspy with disbelief.

Lily shifted her son closer on her hip. "Oh, Tuney," she said in a trembling voice, "I've missed you so."

Petunia flung herself at her baby sister, wet, rubber-gloved hands and all. Harry squawked a protest at the force of Petunia's embrace. Lily set him down on the polished wooden floor by the cupboard under the stairs.

Petunia and Lily sat close together on the bench in the hall, their thighs touching and their heads bent close to speak in quiet voices. Petunia couldn't look at her enough. She seemed much older than she should. Lily was supposed to be her ebullient and spoiled little sister, not this hesitant, worried creature.

"How could you be alive? That Snape boy…"

Lily shifted on the bench. "He saved my life, Petunia. Not just once: a number of times."

"And James?"

Lily lifted a hand to her eyes; Petunia immediately regretted her bluntness and circled Lily with a warm arm in apology. Lily snuffled and leaned into her sister's shoulder. They had not embraced since they were girls, but it felt no different to Petunia; it felt right and proper to hold Lily as she wept.

"He was murdered Halloween night on Voldemort's orders."

Petunia couldn't help clenching her jaw at that name, one she had heard so many times as a girl. "What's been going on since then?"

"Severus found a place to hide me and Harry, but it didn't last. He came for us." Petunia gasped. "It was terrible… Severus's friend defeated him."

"Then he's dead!"

"No, not dead." The finality in Lily's voice gave Petunia a chill. "Either way, it's far safer than it was. His followers have gone to ground. Sirius has sworn to find them; he's going to start the Auror course after the New Year."

Petunia couldn't suppress a sneer at that name. "Sirius Black?"

"Tuney, I know he was awful to you at the wedding – I'm so sorry that ever happened, believe me – but he's Harry's godfather. We're like family."

At that moment, Petunia Dursley would have fielded any number of irritating wizard friends to keep Lily close. She hugged her sister hard and kissed the smooth cheek that freckled in the sun every spring.

A baritone bark outside the front door made Petunia jump. Lily sighed. "I'm sorry, Petunia, I've just gotten a dog. He's a bit protective, and he doesn't like it when I'm out of his sight. Padfoot!" she reprimanded.

"Goggie?" Dudley rushed out of the living room and up to the open door, scattering a bowl of jam biscuits everywhere behind him. Harry trailed behind with curiosity. The three adults followed the children outdoors into the sullen, snowless December afternoon.

"I swear I've seen that mutt before," Vernon said with a growl.

Lily's answering laugh was a little too high-pitched. "He's a very ordinary old mutt. I've seen dozens like him all over the place."

The dog yelped as Dudley pulled his velvety ears. Harry tried to approach to stroke the animal, but Dudley shoved him away. "My goggie!"

Harry took a moment to consider, and then smacked Dudley hard on the shoulder.

"Harry!" Lily scolded. "We don't hit!"

Dudley's confused expression, the very twin of his father's, brought Petunia running. She heaved her sturdy son up to her hip. "Did that Harry hurt my Duddykins?" Petunia clucked, casting Lily a look of reproach. Perhaps being snatched from the jaws of death would earn her nephew a reprieve on Christmas Eve, but never again.

"I think he's fine, Tuney. Look, he wants you to put him down."

Dudley's struggles ended when his feet touched the ground. Timidly, he approached Harry and Padfoot once more. "Goggie?" he queried.

Harry moved over and gave Dudley room beside him on the brown grass. From the sky spiraled the first few flakes of dry snow. The mutt barked with joy, catching flakes on his tongue as the boys ran around with their little hands stretching up toward the low clouds. Christmas lights shone dimly through the Dursleys' front window as the sky darkened.

"Vernon, be a dear and run into town? See if you can't get us a bigger tree and some crackers." She made a mental list of some of Dudley's gifts she could wrap again for Harry. The little moppet shouldn't be shortchanged on Christmas: she could always buy Dudley something more later. Lily wrapped her arms tightly around herself as she watched the boys and the dog romp on the lawn. Petunia clucked. "You're freezing. We should start on tea. Is there anything you want from town?"

Lily smiled, snow melting in her loose auburn hair as she shook her head. "Thanks, Petunia… nothing at all."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. I have several chapters of the sequel ready to edit and post, and then I'll be attempting to finish it. I'll be posting that soon, maybe not tonight but it won't be long.
> 
> Cheers! Hope you enjoyed the story. I definitely loved writing it-- I started it in a notebook 8 years ago while my little boy was nursing, and now he is going into the fourth grade.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Revisions are complete but I want to go back and add the helpful UK word usage corrections provided by diddleymaz. :)
> 
>  _Rowan and Phoenix_ is underway! Hop on over there when you're done! Follow the series arrows. :)


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